Heaven In Your Arms
by Swythangel
Summary: Happiness is relative just as heaven is. An angel finds out that heaven is more than just a place upstairs as he falls to Earth. Shonen-ai.
1. Precocious Angel

Said I wasn't gonna post it here in ff.net anymore but Garnet-chan sort of requested this so here it is. ^__^ All subsequent fics will be posted in the ml. ^__^ http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/swythchanfics.  
  
Author: Swythangel  
  
Email: swythangel@hotmail.com  
  
Title: Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Type: WAFF  
  
Teaser: Happiness is relative just as heaven is. An angel finds out that heaven is more than just a place upstairs as he falls to Earth.  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Spoilers:  
  
Warnings: Shonen Ai, Yaoi, definitely absolutely AU  
  
Disclaimer: Weiß Kreuz is not mine.they're Koyasu Takehito's, Project Weiß, Kyoko Tsuchiya and whoever else ^-^  
  
Keywords/Pairings: You'll find out at the end of this part! ^__^  
  
And is it Gott? Hell, I know it isn't. You know it isn't. I plead insanity. It doesn't want to come out.  
  
This fic is just another WAFF thing (oh yeah, with such a mushy title what else could it be? ^^;), a stress reliever if you will ^_^ Its terribly OOC but I just wanted to squeeze these two into this relationship that I didn't think of character. Ehehehe I hope you guys like it.  
  
My Christmas present to everyone then back to Gott, really!  
  
It's patterned after Jill Barnett's "Daniel and the Angel" in the anthology romance novel "A Holiday of Love". Yes I read romance novels ^^ at least occasionally. Don't take it against me. *lol*  
  
Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Part 1  
  
The sun was shining down on the Earth, birds were singing, it was the perfect day for a miracle.  
  
Or at least that's what the novice angel thought as he looked around to see if anyone was in sight. Everything looked fine. All around the puffy white clouds no other angel was in sight, only the Pearly Gates, St. Peter's most prized possession, stood, shining in all its pearlescent glory.  
  
He looked right and left and just to make sure, he took a quick peek above him. Nope, no sign of an Omnipotent presence or even an angelic feather!  
  
He exhaled a sigh of relief and jutted out his chin. "Everyone can do it. I don't see why I can't." He kept muttering to himself as he shoved the flowing sleeves of his robe up to his shoulder and bent his arms in supplication, a look of intense concentration on his face.  
  
What Ken, novice angel Ken, was trying to do was to create something he had been expressly forbidden to do.he was trying to create a miracle.  
  
C-rack!  
  
The blast that resulted was enough to rock the heavenly firmament. Small stray clouds that were unfortunate enough to be near Ken were obliterated entirely while others skittered through the sky as a wind of hurricane proportions blew past.  
  
Ken was flat on his back, both arms and legs extended out like he was trying to make a snow angel on the cloud floor, a dazed look on his face as the dark smoke was blown away from his features.  
  
He blinked once, twice then blew at the lock of hair that had dislodged itself to hang over his eyes. He moved his limbs very very tentatively.  
  
Fingers and toes wiggled, neck moved from side to side, heartbeat was normal. Ken sighed. Nothing was broken.  
  
He sat up to try and assess the damage to his surroundings. And was promptly distracted by his halo as it slipped down into his eyes. He shoved it back into place with an irritated growl and proceeded to stand up, smoothing down his robe to cover bare legs and shimmying a bit to straighten out crumpled feathers.  
  
A couple of dappled gray feathers fell out and Ken frowned. "I'm molting again. Darn. Why am I the only angel that molts?" He said, looking up in the sky with a defeated expression on his face.  
  
His monologue was interrupted by a muffled grunt emanating from his left side. There was only one person it could be.  
  
"Omi? Omi, is that you?"  
  
Another grunt sounded.  
  
"Where are you?"  
  
Bare feet popped out from a nearby cloud, colored black by the explosion.  
  
"Oh there you are." Ken trudged the struggling legs. Soon a golden head of hair and big blue eyes surfaced from the cloud to stare at him in a dazed manner, coughing out bits of fluff.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"Nothing." Ken told Omi, brown eyes refusing to look at him as he stared guiltily somewhere near Omi's right ear.  
  
Omi looked at him skeptically as he turned around and promptly froze in horror. "Dear Lord! Something did happen, Ken-kun!" Omi said in appalled disbelief as he tugged at Ken's sleeves. "Look what you did now."  
  
Ken turned around to look and almost died.again.  
  
"You've broken the Pearly Gates!"  
  
Ken covered his face with both hands as he groaned. /No, no, no. I couldn't have, could I?/ He slowly opened his hands again and peeked through the space between his fingers.  
  
/I could./ His stomach dropped clear through to the Earth. He walked towards his latest catastrophe with Omi clucking negative syllables all the way.  
  
When he was near enough to asses the damage, he stopped, unable to move as he gazed in horrified silence at the Pearly Gates.or what was left of it.  
  
The entrance to the most hallowed place on Earth was, there was no other way to say it, it was in utter shambles.  
  
The gates hung at a crazy angle from its 24-karat hinges. The hinges had been broken in half. It squeaked as it swayed in slow drunken movements almost in time with the crescendos of the hymns being sung by other angels in the distance. What had been meant to seem like angel wings now looked like nothing in Ken's imagination.and the lock.the lock that held the gates together at its center was.  
  
"The lock? Where's the lock?" Omi said, almost in time with Ken's thoughts.  
  
Ken was about to answer when he felt something powdery beneath his feet. Diamond dust winked at him from the pristine white cloud floor, looking like a mound of fine white sand amidst pieces of luminescent pearl. Ken bit his lip in agitation as he pointed at the mound. "I think its there." His stomach dropping further into the pits of hell as feelings sank. "Somewhere."  
  
Omi knelt down and scooped the dust in his hands, the powdery substance forming a small pyramid in his hands.  
  
"That's all that's left?" Ken squeaked out. "It looks like Lot's wife after Sodom and Gomorrah."  
  
"Ken-kun.St. Peter is going to blow like Mount Vesuvius once he finds out. And can you imagine *His* reaction? Your punishment might be even worse than the last time when you had to polish every silver lining in all the clouds."  
  
Conflicting emotions ran through Ken's expressive brown eyes before resolve set in. "He can't punish me if he doesn't know who did it." He spun around, gathering his robe in his hands as he took off. "Come on, Omi. Follow me!"  
  
"M.matte, Ken-kun!"  
  
"Hurry, Omi!" Ken called out to the shorter blond who was still staring with horror at the diamond dust in his hands. "Or He'll think *you* did it."  
  
All the color drained out of Omi's features and he followed after Ken. Omi knew the Lord would never assume he did it. He would know exactly who did. He was omniscient after all but it didn't reassure him so he followed after his best friend.  
  
They glided from one cloudbank to another until Ken finally found what he was looking for.a chubby cumulus cloud. The perfect hiding spot for him and Omi. He motioned Omi inside as he went in, squeezing into the insides of the cloud amidst the icicles and the silver lining.  
  
Omi eased in after him, tucking his knees under his chin as he looked at Ken with uncertain eyes. "Do you think St. Peter'll find us here?"  
  
"Nope. This is the perfect hideout. I found it when I was polishing the silver linings. No one knows this one has a lining at all."  
  
"Sure?" Omi asked again.  
  
"Yes, I'm sure. I hid here the last time and no one found me. Trust me!" Ken told Omi with a confident look on his face.  
  
"Oh," Omi said. "That was the time you were trying to fly and you ran headfirst into Jacob's ladder wasn't it?"  
  
The confidence fell from Ken's features as he hung his head in embarrassment. "If only all the archangels weren't on it all at the same time." He sighed.  
  
"Persia still has that tweak in his halo. And sometimes, usually when he's singing a particularly difficult hymn, it falls into his face." Omi said, laughter dancing in his eyes.  
  
"I know! I haven't been able to look at him in the eye after that." Ken shook his head mournfully. Then after a moment of quiet silence he looked at Omi steadily. "But that isn't the time I was talking about."  
  
Omi stared at Ken with suspicion. "Don't tell me you did something yet again? Please tell me you didn't."  
  
"Promise not to tell?"  
  
Omi hesitated and then sighed as he nodded.  
  
"Cross your heart and hope to die?"  
  
"I'm already dead, Ken-kun." Omi gently reminded him.  
  
"So am I," Ken replied, "but if they ever find out about those ancient scrolls."  
  
"Scrolls? The sacred scrolls? You lost the ancient scrolls?" A horrified look entered Omi's face making Omi's face look almost scary. Not that it scared Ken, he'd seen it enough times to even twitch a feather. That horrified look always came into play whenever Ken told Omi about his latest mishaps.  
  
"I didn't really lose them." Ken hedged. "At least not exactly."  
  
Omi looked at him suspiciously. "What exactly do you mean by 'not exactly'?"  
  
"I dropped them." Ken blushed.  
  
"Where?"  
  
"Deep into the Dead Sea." Ken said, causing Omi's mouth to drop open. "But someone is bound to find them.someday." He rushed in.  
  
"Its just that they were in the way so I just wanted to move them. Then I tripped.I wanted to do something good, honest. I really didn't mean to." A plaintive note was in his voice.  
  
Omi shook his head. He couldn't say anything. He knew his friend had the very best intentions at heart. It wasn't his fault that everything seemed to turn out so.bad.  
  
Something tickled Omi's nose and he sneezed.  
  
"You cold?" Ken asked in concern.  
  
"No," Omi said, clutching at the cause of his sneeze and holding it up for Ken to see. "It was one of these." A dapple-gray feather was in his palm. One of Ken's wing feathers.  
  
Ken's face fell.  
  
Omi stroked Ken's wing feathers, trying to reassure the crestfallen angel. "Cheer up, Ken-kun. It isn't your fault that you're the only angel with a molting season. I think that's what's keeping you from flying. That doesn't make you a bad angel."  
  
Ken sighed in exasperation. "But that doesn't excuse the fact that I'm awful in everything else! I can't sing one single heavenly note, or play an instrument. And you know what happens when I try to perform a miracle."  
  
They lapsed into silence. After all, everything Ken had said was true. Omi couldn't tell lies just to comfort his friend.  
  
From a distance, the lovely musical sound of harp music floated into the cloud. It grew louder and louder, which meant that a cadre of angels was heading their way.  
  
They both ducked and tried not to breathe.  
  
"Glo----ooo--oooo----oooooohhhooooo---ooo--ria! In ex-cel-sis-dey-oh!" came the sound of pure golden voices raised in praise.  
  
"Don't say a word." Omi whispered. "Its one of the archangel choruses."  
  
A loud plink resounded from outside followed by a thunk. The voices stopped singing just right below Ken's and Omi's clouds. They were so terrified they barely even moved.  
  
A beautiful and leggy archangel with flaming red hair by the name of Manx flinched and looked over her shoulder. "Is that your harp strings breaking, Birman?"  
  
Another angel, this one dark haired but no less pretty, frowned down on her harp. "Two of them just broke."  
  
As everyone looked at the harp, 3 more strings snapped in succession. Thwack! Clunk! Ping!  
  
Manx blinked and then looked around. "If I didn't know better, I'd say Ken was around here somewhere."  
  
Ken's heart almost threatened to burst out of his chest in fright.  
  
A second later there was a thundering crack of lightning, followed by another and yet another, lighting up the surroundings with electric blue flashes that lifted the hair from everyone's neck.  
  
Everyone froze.  
  
"My gates!" It was Saint Peter and he was livid, bellowing all over Heaven. "My GATES!"  
  
Ken assumed that the saintly old man had found what remained of the Pearly Gates. Ken blanched as silence reigned for what seemed like eternity. Then.  
  
"Ken!"  
  
Ken's heart dropped.  
  
"KEEEEN! Front and Center!"  
  
"Dear Lord." Omi whispered.  
  
"Don't say it so loudly. Or he'll hear us." Ken countered back in a furious rush. "He'll never find us here."  
  
Even before he finished, light flashed throughout heaven, brighter than a star going nova. It dissipated the cloud and Ken and Omi fell to the ground. When both of them looked up, it was to the censorious eyes of St. Peter.  
  
Faced with the indomitable presence of the Guardian of the Gates, Ken fell to his nervous habit -- chewing on his lip. He raised his left arm and waved at St. Peter weakly. "Er, Hello there, Sir!"  
  
The Saint who was almost always amiable was unusually silent.  
  
"You know," Ken said in haste, "I was just thinking about you and telling Omi here that you would never find us. Ne, Omi?" He poked a numb Omi with an elbow. Omi nodded woodenly.  
  
"How did you find us, Sir?"  
  
Saint Peter held up his hands and dapple-gray feathers fluttered down to the ground. Inwardly, Ken winced as St. Peter turned all-knowing eyes on his. "Ken, someone has destroyed the gates to Heaven."  
  
A shocked expression made its way to Ken's face. "You mean while Omi and I were hiding in that cloud, the Pearly Gates, your precious Pearly Gates, were actually broken? How could that have happened? A stray comet maybe? Celestial avatars?"  
  
It didn't seem like St. Peter believed Ken's innocence act when an eyebrow rose up into his hairline and he plucked something from Ken's disheveled hair. He held it out in front of Ken's face.  
  
It was a piece of pearl.  
  
Ken looked up with velvet eyes full of remorse but St. Peter was adamant. He crossed his arms. "You know that you have been expressly forbidden to make any more miracles." A knowing look entered his gentle eyes. "I assume that was what you were trying to do?"  
  
Ken nodded.  
  
St. Peter started to pace in front of Ken, adapting a manner he normally adapted when he was lecturing. "Angels are suppose to guard, protect and guide the human race. He stopped, just in front of his. "Not wipe it out of existence."  
  
Ken looked at his toes in misery, unable to meet St. Peter's eyes as he whispered, "I didn't try to .not after that fire in Rome.and Mount Vesuvius exploding." He looked up, eyes pleading. "I would never do that again. I just wanted to help."  
  
St. Peter stared at him for the longest while, making Ken more miserable with each passing minute. He almost couldn't bear it. Ken needed St. Peter to believe him. He had to believe that Ken meant no harm to come to anyone, he only wanted to help.  
  
After an infinity of waiting, St. Peter finally took a deep breath and spoke.  
  
"I'm sorry, Ken, but this time, I'm afraid I can do nothing for you."  
  
Ken's eyes shot open. "Nothing?"  
  
"Nothing." There was a note of finality in St. Peter's voice.  
  
"No!" Omi protested. "Surely."  
  
"Nothing." St. Peter reiterated.  
  
All the archangels in the vicinity started muttering and whispering, making a noise that sounded like a swarm of bees buzzing away. In their midst, Ken stood in stunned silence, unable to move or speak as the meaning of St. Peter's words sank in.  
  
"Please, St. Peter," Omi was tugging on the angel's sleeve, " He didn't mean to do it. Surely you can forgive him, just this once."  
  
St. Peter shook his head as he gently disentangled his robe from Omi's clutching fingers. "I am really sorry, Omi, but there is nothing I can do."  
  
Heaven's bright lights dimmed and with it, Ken's naïve sense of invincibility. He knew he had reached the end of the line this time. A cold empty feeling began to permeate him as hope dwindled away. There was no hope for him anymore.  
  
Stinging tears found its way to Ken's eyes then, shaming but unstoppable. He barely heard St. Peter's next words as a dull buzzing sounded in his ears. But the meaning was clear.  
  
/No./  
  
"From this day forward, Ken is no longer welcome in heaven."  
  
/No./  
  
Clank!  
  
Everything around Ken dimmed. Then his halo disappeared.  
  
/No./  
  
A shrill whistle sounded and his wings vanished.  
  
Ken felt like running away but St. Peter's firm look held him in place.  
  
"You will return to Earth."  
  
In the background he could hear Omi still protesting but he couldn't turn around to reassure his friend as St' Peter's hand descended on his head. "To a time and place where angels fall."  
  
"No, please."  
  
They were the last words Ken uttered before everything turned black and he lost consciousness.  
  
TBC ^___~ Comment onegai? Like it? Trash it?  
  
I know the story isn't that original but I just thought it would be nice. Jill Barnett never had Schuschu, Farfie and Nagi to complicate the plotline. And I was thinking of putting in Yotan, and Ran as angels.extras and all hehehe Should I just stop right now?  
  
Oh and did you guys know it was Crawford? *lol* Or did you think it was going to be Ran? ^__^v 


	2. Darkness Personified

Author: Swythangel  
  
Email: swythangel@hotmail.com  
  
Title: Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Type: 2/9 WAFF  
  
Teaser: Happiness is relative just as heaven is. An angel finds out that heaven is more than just a place upstairs as he falls to Earth.  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Spoilers:  
  
Warnings: Shonen Ai, Yaoi, definitely absolutely AU  
  
Disclaimer: Weiß Kreuz is not mine.they're Koyasu Takehito's, Project Weiß, Kyoko Tsuchiya and whoever else ^-^ "Daniel and the Angel" is an anthology by Jill Barnett in the book "A Holiday of Love". Its not mine, the idea is certainly not mine. I'm just adapting it to fit my twisted sense of storytelling.  
  
Keywords/Pairings: BradKen  
  
*points* look look I actually got to put a chapter limit *nods* Its going to end with Chapter 9. Yes it is! Willing to bet that it *does* end at Chapter 9? ^o^v  
  
  
  
Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Part 2/9  
  
****Where we last left off:****  
  
All he ever heard was a startled shout.  
  
"He just appeared in front of the car, Sir, I swear. I didn't even see him coming." The chauffeur told his boss as he looked down at the poor boy they had ran over.  
  
The employer didn't even answer him as he stared at the crumpled form. He knelt down and felt for a pulse. Sure enough he found it, an erratic but steady beat.  
  
"S.sir, you've got to believe me! I never even saw him."  
  
"Jones! Cease your babbling and control yourself!" A sharpness in the tone warned the chauffeur to get a hold of himself. "The boy is not dead." And as the driver watched, his employer gathered the boy in his arms effortlessly and stood up.  
  
"The house is nearby. I will carry him. You, Jones, will drive the car and go to the doctor. Tell him its an emergency and drive him back to the house."  
  
All throughout the clipped commands, the driver just stared in startlement at his employer. It was strange to see his boss show this much consideration to anyone, least of all a stranger. It took a sharp "Jones!" to snap him out of it.  
  
"Yes, sir!"  
  
The chauffeur rushed quickly to the car. With that, the man strode briskly to the sidewalk, the glow of streetlights illuminating the dark winter night easily enough that he did not have to watch the ground too closely for anything that might trip him. He heard the car being revved up and heard it pull away from the curb in a powerful burst of gasoline but it was a distant sound, detached, like everything else around him, as he stared down at the boy in his arms.  
  
A boy. There was no other word to describe the male in the cradle of his arms. He was no more than nineteen.  
  
He had never held anyone in his arms before. It felt.warm. And strange.  
  
/How could a boy just materialize in front of the car?/ He asked himself. Because he himself knew that his chauffeur hadn't been lying when he said that the boy had mysteriously appeared in front. He had been staring straight ahead and he saw it himself.  
  
It startled him, surely. Eventhough it didn't perturb him that much. He was used to strange occurrences.  
  
But he did want some answers. An explanation. His ordered mind would not settle for anything less.  
  
He looked at the features of the boy in his arms, hoping for some answers to the strange feelings but found none. All that was there was a golden toned face that was ghostly pale right now because of the accident. The paleness contrasting with the rich chocolate hair that splayed over the boy's closed eyes. His fingers itched to touch it to see if it was as silky as it looked. But he didn't. Because he had no reason to. And he never did anything without a reason.  
  
A trickle of blood ran from the boy's lips and there were scratches on one side of his face. Gashes peeked out from the torn jeans, jacket and shirt where his skin came into contact with the rough pavement.  
  
The boy's breathing was labored. Tight and short, indicating that the boy was in pain. But he made no sound, no moans, no screams of protest, no nothing. This startled him. Usually people screamed to high heaven with so much as a scratch.  
  
/He's certainly different./  
  
A faint scent of lemons wafted from the boy, a clean scent that reminded him of simple uncomplicated things. Things that have been excised from his life a long time ago, things he had foregone for the complications and politics of his life.  
  
He found himself missing those things but he brushed them aside with ruthless ease.  
  
/I have no time to think on useless things./  
  
A moment later he was in front of a sprawling marble monstrosity that he called his home, or a near approximation of a home. It was where he stayed to sleep, to eat, to hold parties for his associates.it met his needs therefore it was his home.  
  
He ran up the stairs that lead to the front door and kicked at the door, his hands being full of an unconscious boy to push the ringer.  
  
Nothing happened. So he allowed himself to curse, quite colorfully, before he awkwardly pushed the ringer with his nose.  
  
A deep booming muffled sound echoed inside and the massive doors clicked open a moment later.  
  
He frowned as he strode into the foyer of his home and didn't find his butler in his usual station. "Radbert!" He called out. The butler's name echoed in the immense space of the foyer. The accoustics for echoes being very splendid in big spaces like this one.  
  
"Sir?" The butler craned his neck from the second floor to gape at his master.  
  
He pinned Radbert with a hard glare. "Radbert! I pay you a bloody fortune to open doors and attend to my needs." He shifted his gaze to give the heavy cherry wood door of the library a pointed look.  
  
"Yes, Sir!" Radbert snapped to and hurried to the doors just ahead of the master of the house. "And Mr. Crawford, Sir? Mr. Schuldich, Farfarello and Nagi Noue are waiting in your sanctum."  
  
"Good." Crawford muttered as he looked down on the boy's still unconscious form, "perhaps they'll know what the hell I should do about this little dilemma."  
  
***  
  
Ken's headache was killing him. It was almost akin to the time his head ached when he had flown straight first into Jacob's ladder and all the archangels had fallen on top of him. It had felt like being tackled by football players. What wasn't the same was the fact that the side of his face felt like it was on fire.  
  
Someone touched his shoulder and Ken couldn't help the hiss of pain that came out from his lips as agony shot up his neck.  
  
After the pain had subsided and only throbbing remained, Ken finally felt the presence of others in the room-- standing over him, lounging around him -- but he didn't really feel like opening his eyes and finding out. He didn't feel like anything at all.  
  
"He's coming around." Ken heard a gentle voice say beside her.  
  
"Find out who he is." This second voice was different. No gentleness in this tone, it was like steel or stone, unmoving, granite hard and strong.the voice of one used to command.  
  
/God./ He thought to himself. /I know that voice. Its God./  
  
::Gott! You called that right. B. Crawford, money god and dictatorial bastard.:: A burst of laughter rang out just as the words resounded in Ken's head. It was soon followed by an accented voice that addressed the room. "The boy thinks you are God, Crawford."  
  
It sounded like a cynical voice to Ken.  
  
"No, Farfie!" Another voice intruded, this one younger, a voice that should have contained innocence, naivete and all the happy sunshine of youth but did not. "Do it and I will fling you across the room."  
  
This voice.it spoke of cynicism much like the other accented voice had, of a past that had forced this soul to push aside youth and become this. Ken felt saddened.  
  
"But Schuldich said Crawford is God. God needs to hurt, Nagi."  
  
"Schuldich was just joking. Crawford is *not* God, Farfie. He's mortal, like the rest of us."  
  
"You wouldn't know it from the way he acts."  
  
"Shut up Schuldich! "  
  
"As my leader commands." Ken heard a heavy note of sarcasm in the voice of the one called Schuldich. German, Ken realized.  
  
::At your service. Want to play?::  
  
/Telepath?/ Ken recoiled in surprise, his eyes popping open in surprise, watering at the sudden light.  
  
::Don't strain yourself on my account, little stray kitten.:: Amusement.  
  
But before Ken could reply, a gentle touch on his arm reminded him that there were others in the room. "Child? Are you awake?"  
  
Faced with mundane reality and the startling and frightening revelation of someone in his mind, Ken chose to ignore the voice within and slammed down his shields. And Schuldich retreated, leaving behind a thought that felt almost like a pout. ::Coward. I just wanted to play.::  
  
Ken licked lips that seemed too dry and swollen, trying to form coherent words. Finally succeeding. "My face.it burns."  
  
"Yes, I am sure it does but you'll be just fine. Just a few scratches on you. You're a very lucky boy to figure in an accident like that and get away with such light injuries you know. I should know, I'm a doctor." A gentle hand patted Ken's hand comfortingly. "Can you tell us who you are?"  
  
"Ken."  
  
"That's good Ken." Ken was just in time to see the kindly old doctor shift away from him as his eyesight adjusted to the light of the room. The doctor turned to someone just out of Ken's range of sight. "It appears that he has no serious cranial injuries. His memory is certainly intact."  
  
"Ken who?" came the voice he had thought as God.  
  
"Just Ken."  
  
"Where are you from?" The next question fired out almost in the heels of Ken's answer. Ken didn't even have time to think, only say the first thing that came out of his mouth.  
  
"Heaven."  
  
Silence met his answer but only for a moment before the room burst in a cacophony of reactions.  
  
"Well that explains why he knows God." This from the sarcastic German.  
  
"He knows God?" The voice Ken heard referred to as Farfie asked.  
  
"Don't even go there, Farfarello. I'm getting a headache over all of this and if you so much as spout more of that hurting God idealogy of yours I'll blast you to Kingdom Come."  
  
"I wasn't going to, Nagi."  
  
"Everyone will shut up this instance." Bradley Crawford said in a voice that held just a hint of threat. It was said in a quiet and controlled voice but it had the desired effect. Silence reigned.  
  
And in that stillness, all turned towards the boy in the lounge chair, the same one who was sobbing to himself, rocking to and fro, unmindful of those around him as he remembered the events that had come to pass.  
  
"I fell." He mumbled to himself.  
  
"No, child." The kindly doctor rushed to his side and patted him on the back. "You didn't fall. You were hit by a car."  
  
"No, no you don't understand. I've fallen." Ken felt the tears threatening and he was horrified at the thought of showing such weakness in front of others, of letting them know of his shame. But he couldn't help it. It was like a dam waiting to burst inside of him. "I didn't really mean any harm. I didn't."  
  
"It wasn't your fault, Ken. It was an accident."  
  
Ken didn't seem to hear the doctor as he looked at a point near his ear with a faraway look in his eyes. "I just wanted to be like everyone else. They all did it so easily. So very easily and I." The tears started to fall much to Ken's mortification. "No more angels," her voice caught, "no more wings, no more fluffy white clouds with silver linings, no more haloes. Such a beautiful halo. All gone.  
  
His voice was little more than a whisper by now. "All gone. Everything's gone." He began to hiccup and sob as he thought of all that he had lost.  
  
"He's hysterical."  
  
"I've fallen. Everything gone. No more Omi, no more Persia, no more harp strings breaking.fallen."  
  
"You will stop crying, Ken." Someone said, standing over Ken's form. Ken could feel the man's presence, so potent and strong that the air seemed to warp and crackle around him, filling it with tension. "You will stop crying. Now."  
  
Ken tried to stifle his hiccuped sobs but failed. He couldn't help himself.  
  
"Stop it."  
  
He tried to stop. He really did but it just wouldn't.  
  
"Stop!!!"  
  
"Mr. Crawford! Shouting at him is not going to help the situation any. I suggest we get him to bed, give him a chance to calm down. What he needs right now is sleep. It'll be the best prescription I can give."  
  
A pair of strong arms slid beneath Ken then and he turned reddened eyes to the one who did it. He saw a tall forbidding image over him. A blurred image through eyes filled with tears.  
  
A second later he lifted Ken into his arms and turned, triggering a sharp stab through Ken's neck. Ken moaned.  
  
And the man stilled immediately.  
  
Ken blinked and his vision cleared, allowing him his first clear view of the man who carried him. He looked into a face so harsh he almost squeaked in fright.  
  
Ken revised his earlier opinion. This was no god. In fact, he looked like the devil himself. With hair as black as midnight, blue highlights glinting steely in the electric lights of the room and hard piercing eyes that gave no quarter framed in sleek glasses, a determined look of power stamped into every sharp angle of his face.he looked nothing like God.  
  
All sharp angles and hard lines.that was how Ken would describe this man's features, almost like the dominions of Heaven, like Ran but darker, harder. Like it had gone to Hell and survived to come back, triumphant but changed.  
  
There was a harsh beauty in the face, glittering in its brittleness. He stared down at Ken with sharp intensity, the depths of his eyes fathomless. Ken wasn't sure but he thought he saw, just for a second, a brief flicker of a soul that was lost.  
  
Even as Ken stared at Crawford, so did Crawford. And as if he too had gauged Ken's measure in that one glance, he turned with Ken in his arms and strode from the room, Ken's weight seemingly nothing more than a light feather.  
  
Crawford carried Ken up what seemed like a never-ending flight of staircase, the doctor and the three others in tow. In that time he only looked down on Ken once, a hard stare that felt like a wall, a wall that he put up between him and the world. Ken cocked his head slightly, looking back with a speculative look in his eyes but Brad fixed his gaze ahead.  
  
After a few minutes of walking down a sumptuous hallway, they finally arrived at a room. The door opened, quickly, efficiently just a few feet before they reached it. Ken only had time to catch a glimpse of a blond maidservant before he was laid down on an elegant bed.  
  
Just like every movement did, this one shot pain into his body and he instinctively gripped Crawford's hand.  
  
"Did I hurt you?" Crawford asked in a voice that seemed cold and largely unconcerned.  
  
"No."  
  
Crawford's eyebrows rose up as if to say that Ken was lying but he was distracted by the warmth in his hands and Ken's. It had been a long time since he had ever held another person's hand or been held by one. It was.unusually unsettling. He stared at the joined hands oddly.  
  
Ken watched Crawford's eyes flicker with something indefinable.  
  
"But I think you will." He said, in a faraway voice that had a hint of prophecy. Ken startled at the words he said, wondering where that came from as he blinked in confusion.  
  
Crawford gave him one last unreadable stare before, without a word, he spun around, crook his finger at the other three, and left the room without a backward glance.  
  
***  
  
Brad leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb with his arms crossed over his chest and just watched Ken sleep. He didn't know why but he felt a compulsion to do so, eyeing the brunette on the bed who slept hugging a pillow to him.  
  
Sleep escaped Brad. Which wasn't strange. Of late, he slept little, his mind unable to rest, always prodding and pushing him to work.  
  
Work. It drove him and he cared for little else, knew little else. And he expected everyone else to be the same. Schuldich had once told him that he was a slave driving son of a bitch. He hadn't cared much except for the punishment given for undermining his authority.  
  
Work. It was all there is. He suspected that if he was to stop working, he would not know what to do and that might just be the underlying reason why he kept himself busy with it.  
  
Not for wealth.although his ventures certainly brought in enough. He worked for power. Power to do anything he wanted when he wanted without anyone gainsaying him. And wealth brought him that. He had enough of it to be omnipotent if he wanted.  
  
But now, he took this small moment for himself, for a reason that bordered on sheer nonsense, to look at this boy he had run over.  
  
A silent snort of disgust issued from Brad at the absurdness of what he was doing but he didn't stop. Instead, he pushed away from the door and lithely crossed the room to stand beside the bed.  
  
Silvery moonbeams danced in the darkness of the room through the wide windows left with the curtains undrawn and shone down on the short, rich reddish-brown strands spilled in mild disarray around the sleeping face. Brad wondered how long it had been since he'd noticed moonlight and if he had ever paid attention to a man's, or for that matter, a woman's hair, before.  
  
He reached out and touched a strand, running a finger along it slowly. He didn't know what he had expected to feel but he wasn't disappointed. The strand felt soft and silky between his fingers.  
  
He wanted to bury his hands in the mass of it.  
  
"Why are you looking at me like that?"  
  
Brad hid his surprise, an instinctive move born of years of lessons, natural and automatic. Just as sublimating emotions have become instinctive for him, so much, that emotions have become a foreign thing for him.  
  
It wasn't often that anyone could surprise him anymore. This one had.  
  
He looked directly down into velvet brown eyes, eyes that held open curiosity and was even now staring back at him.  
  
"You're supposed to be asleep."  
  
A grin quickly surfaced on the other's face. "I've never done what I was suppose to."  
  
Brad leaned over on the nightstand and picked up a glass filled with milky liquid, switching on the electric lamp near it. "You didn't drink the medicine either." He said witheringly.  
  
Ken shook his head.  
  
"I see." Brad set down the glass. "A rebel."  
  
Ken cocked his head to one side. "More of a disaster I think. That's why I'm in this fix."  
  
Brad searched Ken's face, trying to decide why Ken would say something like that to him, a stranger. But in his opinion, Ken didn't look like a fallen.man. If ever there was one. Fallen women Brad could understand.but a man?  
  
He shrugged. There *were* male prostitutes, who was he to say otherwise. Though Ken with his innocence did not look like one at all.  
  
"Doing what's expected is so." Ken waved his hand around, trying to find the right word and finding none he grunted and rolled his eyes.  
  
Brad supplied the word for him. "Boring?"  
  
"Yes!" Ken said, smiling at Brad. "That's it exactly! For example, it would be extremely boring if I had drank my medicine and slept. Then we would not be having this conversation at all."  
  
"You would never have known I was here." /I would have preferred it that way./  
  
""True. But you would have known."  
  
Brad was unable to comprehend what value Ken placed on the fact that he would have known. He didn't know what to answer so he watched him instead -- this boy who would be bored by convention, a trait common to today's youth, certainly but not this innocent naiveness. Children these days lost their innocence early in life.  
  
Bored. Brad had been bored when he came into this room. Not that he cared to admit it.  
  
"So, Mr. Crawford, what does 'B." stand for?" Ken reached out and grabbed a pillow, placed it behind his back and snuggled back into it as if he expected to be comfortable for a long chat.  
  
"I didn't even say my Christian name started with a B."  
  
"No you didn't but the German, Sku.Schuldich, the telepath, told me."  
  
Ken heard a muttered 'damn redhead' before Brad answered. "Its Brad. Bradley I mean."  
  
"So Brad for short for Bradley."  
  
Brad nodded. "I prefer you address me at Crawford."  
  
Ken largely ignored that remark. "Bradley.its so short and terribly businesslike." Ken said more to himself than to Crawford.  
  
"I suppose 'Romeo' would have been more to your liking then."  
  
"No." Ken said quickly, quietly, sincerity in his eyes. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad about your name. 'Brad' is a perfectly wonderful name. In fact," Ken brightened, "I seem to recall an actor with the same name. Brad Pitt I think, terribly cute and a good actor?"  
  
A gargled sound of swallowed disgust issued from Brad, quickly smothered. A very unpleasant thought so instead he focused on something else.which was how Ken seemed to care about hurting his feelings.  
  
How strange, to worry about hurting someone over something as silly as a name. (Though being compared to Brad Pitt was almost borderline.) He made no comment but Ken didn't seem to notice.  
  
No more than an instant later, he lifted the covers in one hand and peered under them.  
  
"What am I wearing?"  
  
Brad swore he could see Ken wriggle his toes beneath the covers. "A shirt." He said.  
  
"Yours?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Silk?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Ken dropped the covers and snuggled down on the too-big shirt, then he looked up with a small smile. "Nice."  
  
"I need to contact your family."  
  
"That would be impossible."  
  
"Nothing is impossible." Brad said firmly.  
  
"Contacting my family would involve nothing short of a miracle."  
  
Brad crossed his arms and simply watched Ken.boring holes into his soul with the hard gaze. "Not for me."  
  
The gaze didn't seem to work on Ken. /Not on me Brad Crawford. I've seen worse stares from my dominion friend Ran./"I see you haven't a problem with confidence."  
  
"No I haven't."  
  
Ken gave a huge sigh and crossed his arms instead, looking down on the sheet. "I don't have much confidence."  
  
"Its been my experience that having enough money and power can make one confident about any number of things."  
  
Ken looked up. "What an interesting philosophy. So you think one has to be rich to be confident?"  
  
"It helps. Money can buy anything."  
  
Ken shook his head. "I don't think so."  
  
Brad's eyebrow rose up. "Name something money can't buy."  
  
"People."  
  
A cruel smile made its way to Brad's face. ""I buy people everyday."  
  
"Do you really?" He frowned, then mumbled. "I had thought that slavery was illegal in this century."  
  
Brad wasn't certain if Ken had just cut him off purposefully but before he could comment, she continued on. 'Okay, then. How about love? Money can't buy love."  
  
"For a small part of my money, and sometimes even just to be seen with me, hundreds, no thousands of women and even men, would be happy enough to throw themselves at me at my slightest interest."  
  
With that comment, he saw Ken just look at him for the longest time, the sparkle in Ken's eyes banked as he stared pensively. It made Brad uneasy. "Memories." Ken said quietly, so quietly that Brad wasn't certain he heard him right. " You can't buy memories. You have to make them."  
  
"It takes money to do things that make memories."  
  
"No it doesn't." Ken said with complete certainty that jarred the bespectacled Brad.  
  
"Nothing in this world comes for free."  
  
"I assume from this conversation that money means a lot to you."  
  
"It is a means to an end." Brad shrugged.  
  
"I see. So what do you do with all this money? Help the poor and sick?"  
  
"No."  
  
Now it was Ken's eyebrows that rose up. "Have you ever heard the expression 'You can't take it with you'?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"Where I come from, wealth doesn't matter."  
  
"Then it's probably a place I'd rather not visit."  
  
Ken looked like he was tempted to stick a tongue out at him before he looked away and murmured. "I don't think that will be a problem."  
  
Silence reigned, making it awkward between them. Ken fell to plucking at the edges of the blanket.  
  
"Tell me where to find your family."  
  
"I can't." Ken stilled. "You can't find a family that doesn't exist. I have no family."  
  
Something inside Brad tensed. Something in Ken's manner and the way he couldn't look Brad in the eye said that Ken was either lying or was ashamed. He changed tack.  
  
"Where do you live?"  
  
Ken was quiet, too quiet. He was going to lie to Brad. And that angered Brad more than he cared to admit. Somehow he didn't want Ken to be like every other person he'd known. He wanted Ken to be different eventhough he didn't know why.  
  
"Are you going to answer me?"  
  
"I.I don't know."  
  
He leaned over Ken, placing one hand on either side of his hips and brought his face close to Ken's, close enough that Brad's glasses almost touched the hair sticking out every which way from Ken's head. His gaze was unwavering, piercing.  
  
It was intimidation at its best. "I insist."  
  
"No, you don't understand." Ken returned his look with one so innocent that Brad, jaded hardened Brad, almost fell for it. " I *am* answering you. I don't know where I live."  
  
Brad straightened. "That's very convenient."  
  
Ken stiffened as if Brad slapped him. "You don't believe me." It was more of a statement than a question.  
  
"No, I don't."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"I don't want apologies. Just answers."  
  
"I wasn't apologizing. I'm sorry for you."  
  
"Don't be." Brad turned, walked towards the door and opened it. It was the only time he looked back at Ken. "I have everything I could ever want. I don't need anything."  
  
"Except more money." Ken muttered.  
  
In the doorway, Brad froze, then pinned Ken with another glare, scowling as he did so. "Tomorrow, Ken, you will tell me the truth." And almost as an afterthought, he added. "And drink the damn medicine."  
  
***  
  
Ken didn't drink the medicine.  
  
A short time later, he tiptoed down the dark staircase, his leather boots in one hand, the other hand using the thick smoothly polished banister to steady himself. He was still a little woozy from the accident.  
  
But not woozy enough or insane enough to stay in the house for even another few hours.  
  
He reached the bottom after what seemed like forever and slowly made his way across the dark marble foyer until he felt the heavy wooden front doors under his questing hands. Leaning against them, he pulled on his boots and as quickly and quietly as possible, opened the door.  
  
It was a good thing that Mr. 'Money' Crawford had a staff that worked like clockwork, because the heavy door swung quietly on its well-oiled hinges.  
  
He stepped outside and just stood there for a second. It was freezing out. Colder than the stormiest and highest cloud in Heaven. He shivered and stared helplessly at the unfamiliar streets for a moment before he pulled his short leather jacket tighter around him and wound his muffler on a neck that had goosebumps on it. He took a deep breath and watched it turn to a frosty mist in the cold night air. Ken was willing to bet that his cheeks were starting to turn red.  
  
Ken closed his eyes and said a quick prayer, then ran down the front steps. In less than the time it took for even an angel to flap their wings, Ken disappeared into the winter darkness of New York City.  
  
TBC Comments onegai? ^__~ 


	3. Insurmountable Task

Author: Swythangel  
  
Email: swythangel@hotmail.com  
  
Title: Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Type: 3/9 WAFF  
  
Teaser: Happiness is relative just as heaven is. An angel finds out that heaven is more than just a place upstairs as he falls to Earth.  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Spoilers:  
  
Warnings: Shonen Ai, Yaoi, definitely absolutely AU  
  
Disclaimer: Weiß Kreuz is not mine.they're Koyasu Takehito's, Project Weiß, Kyoko Tsuchiya and whoever else ^-^ "Daniel and the Angel" is an anthology by Jill Barnett in the book "A Holiday of Love". Its not mine, the idea is certainly not mine. I'm just adapting it to fit my twisted sense of storytelling.  
  
Keywords/Pairings: BradKen  
  
Hopefully this'll get done before the Christmas Season ends. I do not want this to extend to the New Year. ^^  
  
For the unbelievers that I will be able to pull off with only 9 chapters.well, considering how long each part is, it better *stay* at nine ^^; If I do get it done by nine then you guys have to make me a fanart *nods* Pretty pretty fanart of BradKen ^^ Never saw any of that around.  
  
  
  
Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Part 3/9  
  
****Where we last left off: Ken disappearing into the cold night.****  
  
It had started out as a perfectly normal day this early winter's morning. Brad went into the dining hall to find Nagi drinking his hot chocolate and staring at his everpresent laptop with a faraway stare.  
  
Farfarello was playing with the different knives on the placement mats, making the maids on station nervous, while reading yet another article on Existentialism. Brad flicked a glance at the title. It was 'God As a Projection of the Human Mind' by Ludwig Feuerbach.  
  
/Well, that's certainly a turn for the better./  
  
::Ah, you approve of my choice then?:: The sleepy thought butted in.  
  
/Schuldich! How many times must I remind you to keep your thoughts to your./ Brad did not get to finish his lecture as his precognitive ability showed him a winter scene of a boy, alone.wandering around New York City.  
  
::Gott! I did not see that coming.::  
  
"Bloody. Hell." Brad growled. Two heads swung towards him then with a question in their eyes. Crawford never spoke until he had had his first cup of coffee. That he did so now meant that something had happened.  
  
"You want us to find him, Mein Leader?"  
  
"No. That will be time and energy best left to plans for Schwarz. He is not our main concern." Brad said, shaking his head in a sign of negation as he turned towards the door. "Radbert!" came the imperious command. And the butler burst into the room, holding the silk shirt Brad had let Ken wear last night. The butler was agitated, aware of why his employer wanted him but Brad saw no reason to dress him down. It wasn't the butler's fault after all. Brad might be a very strict employer but he wasn't a complete bastard.just a damn good impersonator of one.  
  
He camcam camcamcamcame  
  
Brad's brows drew together in irritation, seldom has anyone ever second- guessed him, especially with his precognitive abilities. That a mere slip of a boy would do so now really, really irritated him.  
  
/I should have poured that medicine down his throat./ He looked at the shirt. /Or hid his clothes./ Brad pinned Radbert with a look. "Find out if anyone saw or heard him leave. Check the entire block and the security cameras. Let me know immediately when anyone finds anything."  
  
Radbert was more than a little dazed to be let off without even a reprimand but was brought out of his reverie by Crawford's sharp command. "What are you standing around for? Get going!"  
  
Radbert turned to leave.  
  
"Radbert."  
  
The man turned back. "Sir?"  
  
"I'll take that." Brad nodded at the shirt.  
  
Shocked silence.  
  
Everyone stared at Crawford oddly then looked back at the shirt, only to stare at Crawford yet again. One thought was paramount in all their minds. What was going on?  
  
Schuldich was the first to recover as a lazily cruel smile made its way to his face. He didn't try to force his thoughts into his leader's mind though. He might be impulsive and impertinent but he also knew when he needed to back away.or risk provoking the Schwarz leader's fist to come into contact with Schuldich's nose.  
  
So instead of doing anything, he slumped down comfortably into his seat and tried to enjoy the show.  
  
Brad didn't care one way or another what everyone was thinking about. He stared at the shirt. It carried the tang of lemons. Ken's scent.  
  
"You need to find him, Crawford. Its not a priority mission but you will have to find him."  
  
Brad tossed the shirt into a nearby chair and walked with no-nonsense steps to the long windows overlooking the street. He stood there with his hands crossed in front of him, watching the snow fall lightly on the street corner below. "I know."  
  
"About the release?" Farfarello raised an elegant silver brow. "That's good."  
  
Brad turned towards the one-eyed Irishman with a quizzical eye. "What release?"  
  
"You need to have him sign a document of release." Farfarello told Brad, separating a sheaf of paper from the pile near his plate. "I was going to give it to you after the morning agenda but here it is." With one quick precise movement that spoke of a lifetime experience at throwing things, Farfarello threw the stapled papers at Brad who deftly caught it. "It releases you from every liability for the car accident."  
  
In addition to being a very useful member of the Schwartz organization, Farfarello was also Crawford's lawyer. He might rant about God with an intensity that bordered on the insane but his genius on the law and on circumventing legal liabilities could not be denied. He was the best. He had to be. Otherwise, he wouldn't be on Crawford's employ.  
  
"I *am* liable." He told Farfarello.  
  
"Tch." Farfarello interrupted him. "*Never* tell me that. You pay me a bloody fortune to make certain that no matter what, you are not liable for anything."  
  
"Odd. I thought he paid you a fortune for the entertainment of your philosophical rantings."  
  
"Shut up, Schuldich."  
  
Nagi just gave the arguing twosome a brief uninterested stare before turning back to Crawford who didn't seem to have heard any of the bickerings.  
  
"Odd." Nagi heard Crawford say quietly, almost to himself. "I didn't think he was one to run away."  
  
A fine brown brow lifted in surprise. Nagi had never seen Crawford this involved with anything before.  
  
"What did you say, Crawford?" Farfarello interrupted before Nagi could ask Crawford anything.  
  
"Nothing." Came the clipped reply. "Just an observation."  
  
Outside, the snow drifted down on the streets and on the few pedestrians who braved the slushy sidewalks. His mind flashed the image of a boy with golden skin a little pale from his accident, gashes on the side of his face, chestnut hair falling in disarray over soft velvet brown eyes. An almost fragile looking boy who had been crying because he had lost everything. A young man huddled on the street with snowflakes sticking to his shivering form as if each drop was a small increment of the burden he carried.  
  
A boy with no one. Within him, Brad felt the stirrings of a time-buried emotion that seemed to understand the devastation of that kind of loneliness. But he quickly tamped it down before Schuldich could even get a whiff of the thought.  
  
Brad suddenly felt his exhaustion. He hadn't slept at all after he had left Ken. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Ken's expressive face looking up at him with disappointment. Strange at it may seem, it bothered him. It really bothered him.  
  
"Crawford, did you hear anything I said?"  
  
"Of course, I am not deaf, Farfarello." Crawford asserted. "I need to find him."  
  
"Yes. Get this release signed then he can go wherever he wants. And you won't find yourself in the middle of legal action a year or so from now. We need his signature for you to be free and clear."  
  
"Fine." Crawford said.  
  
"My advice would be to pay whatever it takes to get it. He seems a bit too naïve and not a bit right on the head, talking about knowing God."  
  
"Look who's talking!"  
  
"Shut. Up. Schuldich!" Farfie growled, throwing a glare at the German before turning back to Crawford. ""Anyway as I was saying, he seems too innocent so I doubt it would cost you very much."  
  
No reaction was evidenced from the Schwarz leader except for a small glint in his bespectacled eyes, a glint that only Nagi saw and even doubted. It could have been a trick of the light.  
  
Brad shrugged and strode over to the table. "Let's get this finished then." He sat down and while he was drinking coffee, he listened to Farfarello, Nagi and Schuldich talk about how Schwarz various machinations were coming along with half an ear. In his shielded thoughts, he couldn't rid himself of the niggling feeling that this boy, this Ken, might cost him more than either he or Farfarello could ever imagine.  
  
***  
  
Ken had spent most of the day on the park bench, watching the world go by. Somehow, with all that had happened -- falling to Earth, getting almost run over, meeting Mr. Money Crawford-- he had almost forgotten that it was the Christmas season. But once the sun came up, New York City had awakened.  
  
New York.Ken had heard of it from the other angels.beautiful city, full of opportunities and dangerously deceptive too. One needed to be street smart to survive, they all said. Though right now, Ken didn't really see why.everything seemed so.harmless. One thing Ken learned though, one could not just stand in the streets gawking. Everyone it seemed was in a hurry in New York, everyone had someplace to go.  
  
So Ken kept moving, drinking in the details of the season. Storefronts were festooned with Christmas finery, cherry red ribbons, mistletoes, boughs of hollies, Santas with their pots and bells for charity. It was all new to Ken and terribly exciting.  
  
He wandered into one of the malls to take refuge from the light snowstorm and to keep himself warm. But once inside, he had been caught by the spirit of the season -- the smiling faces of cherry-cheeked children, people smiling and greeting each other.  
  
There were all kinds of stuff for sale, some with functions Ken could only dream about. It made Ken's head swim.like St. Peter had said, it was a materialistic age. But that didn't bother Ken, as long as he saw people smiling and laughing.it was enough. The air felt joyous and alive.  
  
By the time the storm had stopped, Ken strolled towards the park, humming a Christmas carol he had heard in the mall and smiling to everyone he met.  
  
Snow covered trees and plants looked like a confectioner's creation sprinkled with sugar on top. Ponds that had iced over took on the quality of frosted mirrors and the fountains and birdbaths looked like nature's very own Picasso creation.  
  
Before long, the air sang sweetly of laughter and the jingle of bells attached on fanciful sleds. He smiled at the sound of the bells as he remembered. /Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings./  
  
For most of the afternoon, Ken watched the children slide down a hill, their runners whizzing on the fresh snow and knocking down the 'Keep off the Grass' signs. Ken yelled encouragement as they sledded down the hill, even tried a few rides himself.  
  
The children loved him. And Ken found out that he had a natural affinity for kids. He even joined in the snowball fights they had. Though he declined when they asked him to go skating. He didn't have any skates with him after all. So he just waved them off and looked at them with a wistful smile when they ran off towards the pond, skates in hand, and dire threats that the last one to the lake would be a rotten egg.  
  
When nighttime fell, he was alone in the park. He felt like a rotten egg.  
  
Ken sighed. He was no more than an aimless wanderer in a foreign land. He had found a little bit of joy in the laughter of the children which had gotten him through a day that seemed long, but by the time the sun had set, he didn't know what to so. He huddled against the cold, hugging his knees to himself as he drew his legs up. Conserving body heat.  
  
His breath frosted in the air in front of him the instant it left his mouth. It was *cold*. Though Ken was astounded to know he could still be cold with all the clothes he wore. From the loose robe he was used to in heaven, he was now encased in a shirt, jeans, a jacket, a sweater wrapped loosely around his waist and the muffler. He also had shorts, something called boxers, on underneath the jeans, which he found a bit silly. But nothing could compare to the closest thing to Purgatory he ever came across, the contraption in his jeans that the mortals called a zipper! It kept jamming in the cloth from the boxers.  
  
The air was getting colder than the coldest cloud in Heaven, and Ken could feel the chill right through to his bones. He pulled his jacket and muffler even tighter around him, and looked around.  
  
Everyone was hustling to whatever place they needed to be in, some stores closing down for the night. Ken felt so lost and alone, aware that he, among all the people in New York City, had nowhere to go. He stepped back and instinctively looked up to Heaven, to the place he had called home.  
  
All he saw were the skyscrapers all around him, so tall.so tall that they almost seemed like hands reaching out to heaven. Ken could barely see the stars sparkling in the sky. He wanted to see the stars, wanted to reach out and touch them, wish on them in the hopes that they could grant his wish and lead him back to Heaven, to his home, to his friends.  
  
After what seemed to be an eternity of staring and wishing, Ken stared bleakly down at the snow. He didn't realize that the tears had started to fall. They fell until he had no more tears left.he wiped at the salty almost-ice runnels on his cheek and eyes then took a deep breath.  
  
/Get ahold of yourself, Ken. You have to make the best of the situation./  
  
He squared his shoulders and walked determinedly to a part of the city he hadn't explored before. Soon he realized that he had come to the part of the city where people like him, homeless destitute people, huddled on street corners and alleys, around drums with fires in them, hands outstretched.  
  
Ken wondered, wistfully, just how many of them were like him.fallen angels.  
  
After more walking, Ken's stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten all day. He was also very cold and tired. Hesitantly, he approached one of the fires where a motley crew of people huddled.  
  
A careworn woman of about 60 noticed him and moved, creating a little room for Ken beside her. Ken threw her a grateful glance before stretching out his hands towards the fire. The woman looked at him for a long moment. "Poor dear, so young. You haven't been homeless that long have you, dearie?"  
  
"N..no, I haven't."  
  
"It shows."  
  
"It does?"  
  
"Yes. Aside from your almost new clothes.You still have that shocked look in your eyes and you look far too innocent."  
  
"A.anou."  
  
Ken flushed in embarrassment. And the woman chuckled. "Not too many of your kind back here, young one. I suggest you watch your back, learn the ways of the streets if you intend to stay alive."  
  
"What's yo name, kid?" A black man in raggedy clothes asked Ken.  
  
"Ken."  
  
"Well, Ken, Yo can stay here with us for as long as you like."  
  
"Here." The kindly old woman pressed a hot tin can into Ken's palms. Ken smelled a sort of soup. He shook his head. "N..no, you need this more than I do. I.I'm thankful for the heat. Its ok."  
  
"Don't be stupid, boy!" Another man, this time a 40-something male who looked so broken in that Ken's heart went out to him. "You'll need your strength to survive. Its winter. Besides, Maris won't let you give it back."  
  
"Damn right I won't." The woman said. "So drink up, Ken."  
  
"Th.thank you." Ken managed to chatter out, a little choked up by the kindness and selflessness these homeless people showed.  
  
He quickly muttered a prayer of thanks before he drank the piping hot soup. For all that iwas watered down and barely had any taste, it tasted like ambrosia to Ken.  
  
For awhile he just absorbed the heat and the company, answering questions directed at him but as he got warmer and his mind could process information more clearly, he realized that he couldn't stay here.that he had to do something.exactly what it was, he didn't know. He just knew that he had to do something.  
  
So with that, he thanked Maris and the others for their hospitality and set out again into the cold night, walking, watching the snow drift, feeling more than a little lost and cold, and weary of heart, of mind and fast becoming weary of spirit.  
  
Then, Ken heard them. Bells. Church bells ringing out like a chorus of archangels -- pure, clear tones calling out to him.  
  
There was no one near the church when Ken walked up the steps. Hesitantly he reached for the smooth wooden handle of the church's door, afraid that it would be locked, that it would reject him just as Heaven rejected him.  
  
Ken let out a massive sigh of relief as the heavy church door ponderously opened beneath his touch. Inside, the church was warm and inviting, the electric lights a warm gold that made the church seem so holy.  
  
There was peace here and Ken's troubled mind settled into a semblance of it as he walked towards the altar, stopping just a few feet from it. He sat down on the pew on the center aisle and closed his eyes, trying to find even a facsimile of what he had lost. Here, in God's home, surely he would be able to feel the distant tie to Heaven.  
  
A minute or so later, his eyes grew unbearably heavy. He unwrapped the muffler from around his neck and folded it carefully, putting it into the jacket's inner pocket just as his eyes drooped close. Hunger, exhaustion and the cold finally getting the best of him.  
  
Ken lay down and fell asleep.  
  
***  
  
"Oi!"  
  
Ken was warm and comfortable. And tired. So very tired. He didn't want to move at all.  
  
"Oi!"  
  
A pesky fly was buzzing into Ken's ear. Or at least that was what he thought as a half-asleep brain tried to process information that the fly actually formed words and not Z's.  
  
"Oi, Ken-KUN! Wake up!"  
  
"Omi." Ken muttered, then snuggled deeper into his clothing.  
  
"For God's sake, let's just roll him to the floor."  
  
"Youji-kun! Poor Ken-kun is already experiencing a hard time as it is. And besides you know we can.t."  
  
"Urusai! You two complicate things too much! I'll do it." Ken could hear three of his friends bickering in his dream or what seemed like a dream. Until he felt the heat of someone's glare on his skin.  
  
It could only be Ran.  
  
He opened his eyes and sat up quickly, fully awake now as he shoved his hair back from his eyes. "Omi?" He looked again. "Ran! Yotan!" He tried to reach out and hug his friends but his arms held thin air as he fell forward and hit his nose on the solid wooden pew.  
  
He blinked and rubbed at the pained appendage for awhile before looking back at the three angels before him. "I forgot. I'm mortal now, I can't touch you."  
  
His eyes glistened with emotion, something that was reflected in Omi's eyes. His ever-present sunglasses covered Youji's so Ken couldn't see them and Ran was glaring his I-will-not-give-in-to-emotion glares.  
  
"I can't hug you."  
  
"I know, Ken-kun."  
  
"Omi, I'm so scared."  
  
"Oi, Ken. Do you know what's happening? We're coming to you in a dream. You know," Youji gestured, "the angel coming to you in a dream thing? Lesson 103?" Youji was a Guardian Angel so he had the most experience with angel visitations in the mortal plane.  
  
Ken smiled wryly. "I remember. I never could get that right either." He blinked. "Er, isn't someone suppose to turn on the light show and stuff like that?"  
  
"Ken-kun is right! It's a requirement for Angel Visitations. But I can't do that right now, I'm too exhausted." Omi said looking expectantly at the two other angels with him.  
  
"Don't look at me, squirt." Youji shook his head. "*I* was the one who pleaded with St. Peter to allow us to do this, remember?"  
  
"Ran-kun?"  
  
"NO!"  
  
"But you're the only one left!"  
  
"I refuse to. Dominions do not do this sort of thing. I strike fear in the heart of Heaven's enemies, I do not do these kinds of things."  
  
"Raaannn-kuuuunnn!"  
  
"Alright, alright!" Ran took a deep breath and fluttered his massive silver wings, churning up a mini-tornado as he hovered above Ken, eyes glaring like he could kill with one look. "Behold! I bring you tidings of great joy!" Ran's voice boomed out.  
  
The three burst out laughing just as Ran stopped fluttering and settled down on the front pew, his wings rippling for a few seconds before it folded into itself and out unto Ran's back. He glared even harder at the three. "What!?"  
  
"Funniest."Ken choked out. "Funniest rendition I've ever seen."  
  
"Ran, that looked like you were giving news of Armageddon, *not* tidings of great joy." Youji added as he rolled on the pews.  
  
"And besides that's been so overused. Its been around since Our Lord Jesus' birth, Ran-kun. Couldn't you have been more creative?"  
  
"I'd like to have seen *you* try. What was I suppose to have done? Rapped?" Ran muttered, glaring at nothing at all. A pose so like Ran that Ken was overrun by pangs of homesickness.  
  
"I miss you all." Ken blurted out.  
  
"We miss you too Ken-kun." Omi replied as he sat up a little straighter and beamed at Ken. "But we have good news. Well, I think its good news. Tell him Youji-kun." Omi said and prodded Youji to tell.  
  
"What is it, Yotan?"  
  
The Guardian Angel preened a bit and struck a dramatic pose.  
  
"Yotan! Stop with all the dramatics and tell me." Ken said, glaring at Youji with a glower worthy of Ran.  
  
"Alright already. You know you've been hanging around Ran too long, Ken. That glare definitely came from His High Dominion."  
  
"Tell me!"  
  
"Using my powers of persuasion," Ran snorted at Youji's declaration. "I talked to our Guardian of the Gates. Saint Peter has relented."  
  
"I get to come back?"  
  
"Er, well, not exactly. At least not right now. But he said if you can perform a miracle --just one, mind you -- here on Earth, then you can come back to Heaven."  
  
Ken's face fell. "I can't even create a miracle in Heaven. How more so can I do it here on Earth without any of my angel powers."  
  
Ran spoke up. "I don't think it'd make any difference whether you have your powers or not, Ken, or even where you are." He said it gently enough.  
  
"Hidoii Ran-kun!"  
  
"Ran's right, Omi. But I can't think on that right now. I have to think of a miracle." Ken said, biting down on his lower lip as he tried to think.  
  
"Actually, that's not necessary?"  
  
"Eh? Why is that, Ran?"  
  
"Saint Peter's decision was based on a more specific sort of miracle." This from Youji who was now looking a little bit edgy.  
  
Not that Ken noticed. /Another chance! Probably my last chance to get back to heaven./ Ken gripped the edge of the pew and leaned forward. "Anything! I'll do anything, Yotan, if it means I can go back."  
  
"That's good." Youji sighed.  
  
"So tell me. What's the miracle?"  
  
"It's a lesson. You have to teach a mortal to give from his heart."  
  
Ken thought about it for a moment and remembered Maris and the other kindhearted homeless. There were may like her in NYC. He grinned at the three angels in front of him. "I can do that."  
  
Youji was suddenly shifting from foot to foot. And Omi couldn't quite meet Ken's eyes. Only Ran looked at Ken with unwavering eyes.  
  
"You two look as if there's more to this specific miracle."  
  
"There is." Ran confirmed.  
  
Ken waited and Youji looked even more uneasy.  
  
"I'm not going to like it am I?"  
  
Omi shook his head. "Nuh-uh."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Saint Peter has picked the mortal."  
  
"From your tone, Yotan, I suspect it might be easier to convert the Devil than to teach this person a lesson."  
  
"You could say that." Youji muttered.  
  
"You can do it, Ken-kun! I know you can." Omi said, leaving Ken more dread- ridden. Omi never got this perky unless it was really hard.  
  
"Who's my miracle?"  
  
"It's uh.Broedfhsmitscher." Youji'svoice muffled off.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Broedfhsmitscher."  
  
Ken realized that he wasn't going to get the answer from Youji so he turned to the one angel he knew he could trust to say it straight out. "Ran?"  
  
"The financier Bradley Crawford."  
  
Ken's mouth dropped open. "Mr. I-Can-Buy-the-World-and-Power-is-My-Life Crawford?"  
  
The three nodded.  
  
Ken groaned and stared at the altar, dazed. "You were right. This is the worst punishment yet."  
  
"He can't be that bad."  
  
Ken snorted. "You don't know him, Omi."  
  
"Besides, look at the reward. It's the only chance you'll have. Youji-kun pleaded and begged for you. Ran-kun even added his own recommendation. Please, Ken-kun, just try."  
  
He looked up to Heaven, took a deep breath and jutted his chin out in a determined angle. "I'll try. But this is going to be a real doozy, guys. I was joking when I said converting the Devil would be easier, but Omi," Ken sighed, "that's exactly what Saint Peter has asked me to do."  
  
***  
  
It took Crawford a day of trying to find Ken with the conventional means at his disposal to no avail before his clairvoyant powers kicked in. He gave the coordinates and sent Schuldich and Farfarello out. They found Ken in less than half a day.  
  
Crawford sat in his limousine, parked at the curb, with the window down and watched Ken standing in front of the church doors. From the way he was standing, he looked like the world was on his shoulders. His shoulders weren't squared in determination and in one gloved hand, his bright red muffler dangled as if it were forgotten. He had the bewildered look of a child who got himself lost on the streets without his parents in sight.  
  
Then he saw Crawford and his face drained of color for the briefest of moments.  
  
"Stay in here." Crawford told Schuldich and the other members of Schwarz. Nagi shrugged and returned to his laptop, Farfarello back to his knives and Schuldich?  
  
::Spoilsport! I would at least think I am entitled to go since I did find him for you.::  
  
/Stay out of my mind, Schuldich and stay in the car. Or else./  
  
He gave Schuldich a warning glance and got out of the car, his eyes fixated on Ken. He walked up the steps towards him.  
  
Ken swung his muffler unto his neck and fussed around with it, looking everywhere but at Crawford.  
  
"Ken." He inclined his head.  
  
"Mr. Crawford." Ken said with a curtness that conveyed how he felt about Brad. He raised his chin and took a step away from him. And almost strangled as his jacket refused to budge.  
  
R--ripp!  
  
The sound of leather ripping was so loud that Schuldich poked his head out of the limousine to see what was wrong. And promptly fell to laughing.  
  
Ken froze and his eyes grew as wide as dollar coins. He looked over his shoulder.  
  
Brad peered past him. Ken's leather jacket was caught in the church doors. Crawford's mouth almost twitched but he kept his face impassive. Instead he opened the door to release the jacket. "Allow me."  
  
For a moment Ken looked like he was going to explode but a flicker of humor flashed in his eyes at the situation.  
  
Nose purposefully high in the air, he inclined his head at Crawford. "Thank you." And he descended the steps slowly, his torn jacket dragging like ribbons at his back.  
  
For the second time in under two minutes, Brad bit back the sudden and foreign urge to smile. He moved to Ken's side, his pace identical to Ken's.  
  
Ken said nothing.  
  
"Nice weather." Brad commented, for lack of anything to say.  
  
"If you like snow."  
  
"I do." Brad said firmly, It was one of the few things from his childhood he had allowed memories to. Skiing in Aspen, the Alps.it was his dearest memories.  
  
"So do I."  
  
They reached Brad's limo then and the chauffeur, Mr. Jones, quickly opened the door while Brad gestured for Ken to get in.  
  
Ken stopped in his tracks and gave Crawford a questioning look.  
  
"Get in."  
  
"No, thank you."  
  
"I wasn't asking."  
  
"I could tell." Ken's chin was jutting out.  
  
Brad's eyes narrowed and he took a deep breath before gritting out "May I offer you as lift?" through clenched teeth.  
  
"No, I wouldn't want to keep you. After all, time *is* money."  
  
A mental laugh resounded inside Brad's head.  
  
::Spunky one isn't he?::  
  
/Shut up, Schuldich./  
  
Brad sat down in the soft leather seat, ignoring the madly smirking Schuldich, feeling disarmed by a slip of a boy. He pinned Ken with a stare meant to make him as uncomfortable as Brad did. To his surprise, brown eyes raised and held his own. And something like a challenge passed between them.  
  
A challenge given.and accepted.  
  
After a moment, Ken turned and sauntered away.  
  
Crawford tapped the glass separating the passenger's side with the driver's and motioned for the driver to follow Ken.  
  
And like clockwork, the car inched forward slowly, keeping pace with the boy walking the streets perfectly. It had too or Jones would hear of it from his perfectionist employer.  
  
Crawford opened a window and settled back against the passenger seat, following Ken with his eyes. "I've been looking for you."  
  
"Why? No one for sale today?" Ken didn't once turn around as he threw that comment Brad's way.  
  
He wouldn't rise to the bait. "It's early yet."  
  
"I would think that looking for me wouldn't be that profitable. You'd do better staring at your television screen in that mausoleum you call a house staring at the stock market."  
  
"I have some spare time." He checked his solid gold Rolex. "It's ten A.M. The banks have been open for an hour. I've made nearly ten thousand in interests already."  
  
Ken blinked but never missed a step. With a voice as bland as the grey sky above, he replied. "How nice for you."  
  
"Don't you want to know why I was looking for you?"  
  
"No."  
  
Brad watched Ken silently for a moment, tapping a finger against his thinned lips. Most who knew Crawford would know that he was at his most dangerous at this situation, which was why Nagi, Farfarello and Schuldich were minding their own business at their places in the car. But Ken didn't know that nor would he care to.  
  
After a few steps in silence, Ken stopped abruptly with an expression of frustration on his face, one hand running through his scalp in an agitated manner. He looked straight at Crawford. "I don't understand you."  
  
::Join the club, kitten. Most of us don't.::  
  
/Few do./ "Don't even try."  
  
Ken pulled his gaze away and stared at tightly clasped hands. "I think I might have to try." He whispered to himself.  
  
He looked vulnerable in that moment. Without hesitation, Brad leaned over to poke his head out of the window, resting an arm on the opening. "I have a proposition for you." He adjusted his glasses with the back of his hand and said in his most businesslike voice. "Get in and we'll talk."  
  
Ken looked up into the sky then sighed. "I don't think I can do this. Seriously."  
  
"How do you know? You haven't heard my offer."  
  
Ken shook his head. "I can't explain."  
  
Brad paused to let the tension build. It was a tactic he used often, intimidation at its best. It had never failed before.  
  
Time ticked by.  
  
Ken just stood there, looking at everything around him without appearing to be disturbed by Brad's glare.  
  
"I'll give you a hundred dollars to get in this car right now."  
  
Ken's head whipped back to him, velvet eyes narrowed and sharp. He stared for a moment before squaring shoulders and walking away.  
  
"Well?" Brad called out after him.  
  
"I don't think so."  
  
He watched Ken pass an alley crowded with shiftless homeless people. Saw Ken talk and then hug a careworn old woman, slap some of the men on the back and then go his own merry way.  
  
::The little kitten does get around doesn't he? Got to admit I never expected him to even know these kinds of people existed. Not with his innocent act.::  
  
Brad couldn't help but agree. If he hadn't seen it with his eyes.  
  
"Stay with him, Jones!" Brad said into the intercom system before Ken could disappear around the street corner. When the car was directly beside Ken again, Brad leaned back and counted to five before he said, "Two hundred."  
  
"No thanks."  
  
"Five."  
  
Ken shook his head and whistled.  
  
"A thousand."  
  
Ken ran into a streetlight and stepped back quickly, acting like he hadn't done it at all.  
  
Brad couldn't help the small smile that came to his features then. "Five.thousand."  
  
Ken spun around. Brad couldn't tell if the boy was stunned or horrified.  
  
::I'd say both. After all those aren't just dimes you're handing over.::  
  
"You're serious?"  
  
"Very serious."  
  
"Five thousand dollars?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Ken blinked. "Cash?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Now?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Ken walked over to Crawford and held out his hand, palm up. Crawford smiled in triumph. He had won!  
  
::I wouldn't exactly call it winning. You are now short five thousand dollars and he has it for nothing except to get into the car. I'd say the boy won, Crawford.::  
  
/Shut up, Schuldich./  
  
Brad opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk, pulling out his wallet from his breastpocket and pulling out crisp bills folded neatly in two. He put it into Ken's open palm.  
  
"Count it please."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You need to count the bills into my hand. Just to make sure its correct. You wouldn't want to make a mistake."  
  
An irritated look flew across Brad's eyes as he snatched the money from Ken and counted each bill.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"Get inside." Brad said curtly.  
  
"Wait just a moment." Ken hurried past him.  
  
"Now, Ken." Brad called out. "I mean it."  
  
He waved Brad away, already halfway back to the alley. He stopped in front of a group of old people and put a hundred-dollar bill each into their hands, then did the same to every one he saw. Finally he stood in front of the old lady and the ragtag band of men he had talked to before and handed them the rest of the money.  
  
"Thank you for last night." Ken hugged Maris. "Merry Christmas."  
  
The homeless people in the alley looked at the bills in their hands then looked at Ken like he was God's own angel came down to help them.  
  
Brad caught a whisper of a smile on Ken's lips as he spun around and walked towards him. When he finally stood in front of Brad, he raised his chin and quietly said, "Okay, Mr. Crawford, I'm ready now."  
  
Ken had just given away five thousand dollars to shiftless people.without a thought and only minutes before Brad himself had just handed it to him. He didn't know if he wanted to strangle Ken or congratulate him. So he just stood there, staring down at Ken, surprised.  
  
Again.  
  
In just a span of a few days, Ken had managed to surprise him more than any other person had. Oddly, and perversely, he felt a strange sense of satisfaction as he silently helped Ken climb in and close the door.  
  
They sat there for a moment, just measuring one another, oblivious to Farfarello, Schuldich and Nagi. It was another kind of challenge, Brad realized.  
  
Ken appeared inordinately proud of himself. He could tell by Ken's expression, which was halfway between a smirk and rebellious determination. Brad waited a moment, letting Ken bask in his victory. /The last laugh is still mine./  
  
Casually, he looked out the window, then said, "I would have paid more."  
  
"Would you have?" Ken raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Interesting." Ken cocked his head and tugged on one of his bangs. "I thought you needed a lesson on how to treat people."  
  
Farfarello snickered and Schuldich laughed.  
  
Ken ignored them as he leaned forward to prop an elbow on his knee and his chin on his fist, looking for the entire world like an innocent little boy.  
  
He looked right into Crawford's eyes. "I'll tell you a secret."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I would have come for nothing."  
  
TBC ^__~ As usual, comments onegai? Long chapter ne? ne?  
  
Ken's a naughty mischievous angel ain't he? ^_____^ Gads.  
  
I love making Farfie Brad's lawyer.its so well.I like it. Don't you just wonder what positions Schu and Nagi have? ^^ And funny Ran as the perpetually glaring angel, this is so fun! I know it's a bit OOC but it was fun *beams at all of you* I hope you guys laughed over it as I did ^^  
  
Of course, the favorite phrase for this part is "Shut up Schuldich!" ^__^  
  
Schuschu: I noticed that. Why me? Why couldn't it have been Nagi?  
  
Nagi: Shut up Schu!  
  
Schu: Or Farfie?  
  
Farf: Shut uo Schu!  
  
Schu: Or even Brad?  
  
Brad: Shut up Schuldich!  
  
Ahohoho! I love Schuschu! ^^ 


	4. Thrown Gauntlet, Challenge Accepted

Author: Swythangel  
  
Email: swythangel@hotmail.com  
  
Title: Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Type: 4/9 WAFF  
  
Teaser: Happiness is relative just as heaven is. An angel finds out that heaven is more than just a place upstairs as he falls to Earth.  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Spoilers:  
  
Warnings: Shonen Ai, Yaoi, definitely absolutely AU  
  
Disclaimer: Weiß Kreuz is not mine.they're Koyasu Takehito's, Project Weiß, Kyoko Tsuchiya and whoever else ^-^ "Daniel and the Angel" is an anthology by Jill Barnett in the book "A Holiday of Love". Its not mine, the idea is certainly not mine. I'm just adapting it to fit my twisted sense of storytelling.  
  
Keywords/Pairings: BradKen  
  
Hopefully this'll get done before the Christmas Season ends. I do not want this to extend to the New Year. ^^  
  
Wai! I actually finished another part for Ken's birthday! Happy happy birthday Ken-kun! ^^  
  
  
  
Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Part 4/9  
  
Ken sat in the large leather wing chair in Bradley Crawford's study and looked at the paintings, the antique furnishings, the long elegant windows that looked out over the street two stories below, and the snow that was falling outside. He looked at everything. Except Brad.  
  
"Ken."  
  
Ken turned towards him.  
  
He didn't look at Ken. He sat behind his massive cherry oak desk, his chair facing the right side of the room and his gaze fixed on a Rembrandt painting on the wall. His position was a relaxed one, indicating confidence in his power. He had all the appearance of one who had the whole world at his feet. There was no denying the fact that Bradley Crawford had power.  
  
His stance, his manner, his surroundings, his voice.everything exuded it.  
  
Brad picked up an old-fashioned fountain pen on his desk and absently tapped one end on his desk blotter. "You said something that caught my attention when you were in this house before."  
  
Ken didn't say anything though he did wonder what he could have said that could be of interest to one such as Crawford.  
  
"You claimed there are things that money can't buy."  
  
"There are."  
  
"I don't agree."  
  
"Why am I not surprised?" Ken muttered. "But."  
  
Before Ken could say anything, Brad raised his hand. "Let me finish. I don't agree but I like challenges."  
  
"I could tell." Ken said wryly.  
  
Brad gave Ken a pointed glare, one that indicated that he wanted Ken to be silent. Ken gave him what he wanted.  
  
"I find what you said very intriguing."  
  
"Oh? So what are you saying exactly?" Ken said, his features scrunching up in concentration.  
  
"I'm giving you the opportunity to prove your point."  
  
"I don't exactly understand you." Ken said cautiously.  
  
"You claim that you have no place to go."  
  
Ken nodded. "It isn't a claim. It's the truth."  
  
"If that is the case, then it is simple. I'm offering you this house to stay in. You in turn will attempt to prove your theory correct." Brad swung his chair to face Ken then, his elbows propping up his arms on the desk as he pinned Ken with a glare that Ken was sure could intimidate St. Peter himself. "Prove to me that there are things in this world that money can't buy."  
  
"Why?" Ken blurted out. "Why this? And why me?"  
  
Brad leaned back with a bored look that Ken thought was too calculated to be real. "For entertainment."  
  
"But you called this a challenge."  
  
"It is." Brad raised the pen again and twirled it. "You see, while you are trying to show me the things that money can't buy, I, in turn, will show you just exactly what money *can* buy. Each of us will be out to prove our point."  
  
"What are the stakes?"  
  
Brad looked surprise but then his mouth quirked up and then laughter poured forth. An honest genuine laugh with no sardonic tone to it. It sounded rusty, like a gate left unoiled for a long time, like it hadn't been used often. There was an amused glint to his eyes.  
  
"Name your price."  
  
Ken shook his head. "You always think in terms of money don't you?"  
  
"Name your reward then."  
  
Ken thought about his circumstances and his goal. This was almost too easy, like Crawford's plot was playing into Ken's hands.  
  
Perhaps, Ken thought, his years in heaven had earned him even a miniscule amount of divine help. Or perhaps kissing the bumper of Crawford's disgustingly expensive car had knocked him senseless.  
  
"Anything?" Ken ventured out.  
  
There was something dangerous and wicked in Brad's eyes when he answered. "Absolutely anything."  
  
"Then," Ken said, propping his arms on the table and leaning forward to stare Crawford in the eyes, "if I prove you wrong, you will, personally and once a week, find and create an opportunity for one who has lost all hope. Someone like those people I gave your five thousand dollars to today."  
  
Ken watched for his reaction.  
  
"Fine."  
  
Ken froze. Crawford had agreed too easily. He looked suspiciously at the man behind the desk. "What do *you* get out of this?"  
  
For a while it seemed that Crawford would not answer Ken as he stared at the legal paper Farfarello had given him in his hand. He appeared to be thinking deeply.  
  
After a long silence, Ken cocked his head and said, "Mr. Crawford?"  
  
Brad looked up.  
  
"You haven't answered me."  
  
Brad gave the paper another long look, then seemed to come to a decision as he set it aside with a perfunctory flick of his wrist.  
  
"I'll get companionship." He said in a clipped tone as he braced his hands on his desk and stood up quickly, then shuffled some papers. "I have an engagement to attend tomorrow night and another a few days later. You will accompany me."  
  
Brad turned away then and walked to the windows to stare at the street outside.  
  
"Er, you mean, like, go with you?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"With the others?"  
  
"Not tomorrow night, Schuldich and the others have things they have to attend to but they will be coming for the other event."  
  
"So its just the two of us?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Ken's eyebrow rose up. "Aren't you afraid of being censured?"  
  
"The opinion of others have never mattered to me."  
  
Ken blinked. "Oh, well, if that's the case then that's that." He continued. So that's it? That's all I do? Just go with you?"  
  
"Anywhere I ask."  
  
Ken stood up. "Okay then. We have a deal."  
  
Brad pressed a button on the intercom and the butler Radbert entered. He faced the man but his gaze was on Ken. "Show Ken to the gold suite, Radbert."  
  
Suddenly, Ken had an uneasy feeling that he had just jumped into a lake with his hands and feet tied.  
  
"See that he has everything he wishes," Brad paused, a silence filled with meaning, then added, "Anything that money can buy."  
  
***  
  
The gold suite was just as its name implied.gold. The bed was gold. The walls had panels that were covered in gold-flecked wallpaper, then wainscoted in gilt. The high ceiling was coffered and painted with a sunrise scene of golden magnificence and the floor was a rich golden oak, or it looked like golden oak, what was showing under the thick plush carpet of light *golden* yellow with designs in a deeper gold.  
  
Ken looked down on the carpet, half-expecting to find the carpet pattern to be interlocking dollar signs and was relieved to note that it was just an obscure floral design.  
  
He sighed and crossed the room to open a door that led to a dressing room almost the size of the bedroom itself. Three quarters of it were panelled in mirrors, all gilt framed of course. And through another door with gold handles shaped like dolphins was a private bath of yellow marble with gold dolphin fixtures and.  
  
"Good God!" He muttered. "A gold sink!" He stared at it and the gold-framed mirror above it.stunned into disbelieving horror.  
  
Then something reflected in the mirror and Ken's mouth dropped open as he saw what it was. He blinked, once, twice then turned around to look.  
  
The toilet was a golden throne.  
  
He gaped at it for a second before he burst out into hysterical laughter. Laughter that intensified each time he took in the accoutrements of the bathroom. He laughed so hard that he sank to his knees in the yellow marble floor.  
  
This had to be a joke. It was too ludicrous not to be.  
  
But as Ken stood there long enough, the situation became less funny by the moment. All of this.it was all made from high quality materials, the best that money could buy. An incalculable amount of money had been used to make this suite.money that could have been put to better use, Ken thought as he remembered the homeless people.  
  
He sobered and went from the room quickly, feeling very saddened and not a little nit overwhelmed and pessimistic about his chances of ever teaching Bradley Crawford anything.  
  
Once in the bedroom, he just stood there and stared around him. Every piece of furniture in the room, every painting, every material from the fireplace to the objects d'art were coldly flawless. Expensive. Priceless.  
  
Minutes passed, one by one. Time revealing what Ken hadn't understood before. The man who owned the house, this room, needed to learn more than just how ti give from his heart. He was so lost, his values so skewed, that Ken wondered if Brad could ever find joy or happiness in just living. If he even understood the human spirit or anything that mattered in the world.  
  
Ken curled up on the bed, hugging one of the expensive plump down pillows with the golden fringes on the gold covers as he stared up at the canopy with a sense of grief so very deep it touched him in a way nothing had done before.  
  
And without any outward reason, a tear dropped down from eyes suddenly misty with moisture. Then another dropped and another until he was crying silently. He turned over and buried his head in his arms, sobbing now, wracking sobs that came from his very soul.  
  
Ken was crying, but not for himself. He was crying for Bradley Crawford, a fallen soul.  
  
***  
  
Brad descended from the car and allowed the chauffeur to close it. He looked up to find Ken watching him from one of the windows upstairs. Just for a moment though before the brown head disappeared.  
  
Brad watched the drapes drift back for a moment longer before going up the long expanse of snowy steps to the door, fighting another urge to smile.his second one that day.  
  
The front doors swung open wide and early, even before he reached it.  
  
/Radbert must be looking for a raise./ Brad thought before he recalled that it was near Christmas.that time of the year when every servant, delivery boy and worker began to fawn, hoping for a large tip.  
  
But to his surprise it was Ken who met him at the door. He was wearing his jacket and everything else he had worn since the accident, the back of his jacket trailing like shredded ribbons behind him.  
  
Brad frowned and cocked his head, gesturing at the upstairs window. "Weren't you just upstairs?"  
  
Ken nodded.  
  
Brad looked down the front steps. There were twenty of them. He knew that the main staircase had to have at least fifty steps. How in God's name had Ken managed to meet him at the front door?  
  
A laugh. ::Guess, Mein Leader.::  
  
Brad ignored Schuldich and looked at Ken who was flushed a bright healthy pink and was panting a little as if he was out of breath.  
  
/He ran down the stairs./  
  
::Right in one. Give the man a prize!::  
  
Sometimes the best way to stop Schuldich from prying was to ignore him altogether and this day Brad was only too glad to oblige. He turned towards Ken and gestured to his clothing. "Going somewhere?"  
  
"Yes. The five of us are."  
  
"Five?"  
  
"Schuldich, Nagi and Farfarello are coming with us."  
  
"I see." /Schuldich?/  
  
::Don't look at me. Your little kitten pestered all of us until we all had to give in or threaten him with bodily harm. Since we concluded that you don't want to come home to shredded Ken meat, a broken body thrown out your front lawn or a mental mess, we agreed to his request.::  
  
/Have you finished everything for the day?/  
  
::Ah, always the meticulous one. But ja, we have finished everything we needed to do. No worries.::  
  
/Good./ Brad turned back towards Ken. "Clarify. Why are we going out?"  
  
Ken smiled at him. "You said I was supposed to prove my theory. Well, I'm ready."  
  
"For what, exactly?"  
  
"Your entertainment."  
  
Brad gave Ken a long pointed look.  
  
Ken stared back at him with brown eyes that were a little too red.  
  
"Have you been crying?"  
  
Ken looked away, scuffing his boots on the snowy step. "I had something in my eye."  
  
"Both of them?" Brad challenged.  
  
Ken jutted out his chin. It was defiance at his best, Ken's best. "Yes."  
  
But Brad was immune to such defiance. He could outwait Ken. He crossed his arms with equal stubborness, glaring down at Ken.  
  
Unfazed, Ken held out an old valise. "Here."  
  
"What's this?"  
  
"It's a surprise."  
  
Brad gingerly took the valise from Ken.  
  
Ken stood there, silently waiting in expectation. And Brad stood there, silently amused.  
  
It began to snow again and Ken looked up into the sky. "Come." He said finally and threaded his arm through his, all but dragging him down the steps.  
  
"I thought Schuldich and the others were coming too." Brad reminded Ken. If he was going to be submitted to undignified things he was going to insist that the other suffered with him.  
  
::You're all heart, Mein Herr."  
  
"Oh, I told Schuldich already. They'll be along shortly."  
  
"What? How?"  
  
Ken tapped his head. "How else?"  
  
And that surprised Brad yet again. Nobody ever felt comfortable enough with Schuldich's mental abilities to voluntary contact the telepath via mind link except for Schwarz. That Ken would do so surprised Brad.  
  
When they had reached the end of the steps, it was to see the limousine disappear around the bend, heading for the garage at the back of the house.  
  
"Wait here. I'll call the chauffeur."  
  
"Stop right there." Ken tugged on his arm, simultaneously waving at the three descending the steps to where they were. "We're walking."  
  
"It's snowing, Ken."  
  
"I told him that already but he wouldn't listen." Schuldich interjected as the rest of Schwarz finally descended the steps. Nagi had a disgruntled look on his face and Farfarello looked ready to slice Ken open.  
  
Ken smiled up at everyone, oblivious to the deathglares directed his way. "Come on, you guys! Walking in the snow is the best part."  
  
"He's crazy." Farfarello muttered under his breath.  
  
"Look who's talking." Schuldich chuckled. "He isn't the one who's dressed like he's strolling out in a summer day."  
  
And it was true. Farfarello was dressed in tight leather, sleeveless and slashed up in some places. He didn't look an inch like the respectable lawyer. In fact, he looked like a deranged killer especially with his eerie one eye.  
  
"Shut up Schuldich." Farfarello growled.  
  
"Can we *please* get going?" This came from Nagi who was hugging his laptop to his chest along with an identical valise.  
  
"Come along then." Ken said cheerfully.  
  
A few minutes later, they were all walking down the sidewalk, everyone carrying a valise. Ken was swinging his in one hand while the other was holding Brad's arm, as if preventing him from running out on Ken. Ken chattered about the snow and the scenery as they passed them by. He hummed a Christmas tune and smiled at people, wishing perfect strangers "Merry Christmas."  
  
Schuldich, who was always amenable to such things, played along, wishing people "Froliche Weinachten" with almost manic intensity, tweaking their minds just a little as he did so. When Ken poked Farfie to do so, the Irishman just told him that it would not hurt God if he did so, so he wouldn't. Brad rolled his eyes. /Guess that article didn't work./  
  
::Never expected it to.::  
  
Nagi just glared at Ken and ignored him the whole time, managing to seem like the frosty ice prince out on a stroll, his beautiful face remote.  
  
And Brad? He told Ken firmly that he was not going to and that was that.  
  
When they neared the park, Ken grasped Brad's hand and puled him across. He was singing about bells and angels when he led all of them down a snowy path to a clearing where there was a frozen pond. The surrounding trees and bushes were heavy with snow.  
  
Ken plopped down on a park bench up a hill across from the pond and patted the spaces next to him. "Come on guys! Sit! Sit!"  
  
Brad bent down and dusted the snow off Ken's left side, then sat down. Schuldich and the others reluctantly followed.  
  
"Is sitting on a snowy park bench your idea of entertainment?"  
  
"Of course not!" Ken said as he took the valise from him and sat it down on his lap, snapped it open and burrowed inside. A second later he looked up, grinning. He raised his hands, dangling from them was a pair of beat-up old ice-skates.  
  
"Yours." He plunked them down on Brad's lap.  
  
Brad stared down at them just as Ken opened his own valise and urged the others to do so. "And here's mine!"  
  
"This is the surprise?"  
  
Ken nodded. "And its absolutely free."  
  
"Where did the skates come from?" Brad said, darting a glance at the three others who were looking at their skates in disgust.  
  
"I borrowed them. For free." Ken said smugly. "Now go ahead! Put them on." He bent down and took off his own boots to stick his feet in the skates. Just as he was doing so, a mental plea came from Schuldich.  
  
::Crawford, surely you don't think we're going skating? Nagi, Farfie and I do not want to. And I am sure you don't either.::  
  
Schuldich was right. Crawford didn't want to indulge in such a frivolous pasttime. He glanced down at Ken who had finished tying the skate strings together and was even now lifting one foot and examining his skates as if they were glass slippers. "Not bad." The brunette said with obvious delight.  
  
Brad was about to tell Ken that Schwarz did not skate but before he could do so Ken noticed that he hadn't made a move towards his skates. Ken planted his hands on his hips. "You haven't put them on yet. I thought you said you liked challenges."  
  
"I didn't say that." Farfarello said, glaring at Ken.  
  
"Nor did I." Nagi chimed.  
  
"And furthermore.."  
  
"Put on the damn skates. " Brad said quietly, glaring at the other Schwarz members as he bent down to put his own on.  
  
"But."  
  
"But."  
  
::But.::  
  
"Just put them on." Brad said, more firmly.  
  
Of course no one wanted to argue with Brad when he was like this so the others glared at the skates they held and put them on.  
  
When Brad looked up an instant later, it was to find Ken walking down the path to the pond. Ken was sauntering like a conquering king. Form the way he carried himself, one would never know he still had this large rip in his jacket from the church incident, or that his clothes had small holes in them from the car accident.  
  
Funniest thing. For the first time in too many years to count, Brad wasn't bored.  
  
"Better hurry," Ken called out over his shoulder in a singsong voice. "The last one there has to give five thousand dollars to the poor!"  
  
Schuldich laughed at that and hurried after the brunette, graceful even with skates on. Nagi followed behind, muttering darkly, too low for anyone to hear.  
  
"Goddamn that boy!" Farfarello muttered, stalking after the two, glaring at the snow like it was his worst enemy.  
  
Watching Schwarz trudge down the path in skates, following an innocent looking boy like they were going to an execution, Brad couldn't help but smile to himself for the third time that day.  
  
***  
  
"Nani? What do you mean we have to pay a dollar each for just three hours? That isn't fair." Ken said as he stared in dumbfounded disbelief at the park official in a blue uniform coat. The official stood inside a small toll booth that had been hidden by trees and bushes.  
  
The man leaned forward from the window in his booth with an air of indifference. "Look, kid, I don't know or care where you get your sense of fairness, but the fact remains that there's a dollar toll to use the pond. Either you pay or you don't skate. Its as easy as that."  
  
Ken could hear someone coming down the path, several someones. He didn't want to turn around and see the triumph in Brad's hard face but he didn't have any choice. Directly behind him he could hear three pairs of skates crunching in the snow.  
  
"What's the matter?" Brad asked.  
  
Ken stared at the ground for the longest time before he finally looked up and admitted. "I was wrong. There's a fee to skate."  
  
Nagi was the first to react, shouting out exuberantly, shocking everyone for a second. "Alright!"  
  
::Yes!::  
  
"There is a God!" This from Farfarello who was almost grinning maniacally.  
  
A second later, Ken heard the faint dry rustle of money so he looked up.  
  
Brad held out a hand with crisp new dollar bills on them. His intent clear.  
  
::Crawford?:: Disbelief.  
  
"No, Brad. Please?" came Nagi's plea.  
  
Farfarello just slumped.  
  
Ken shook his head. "No."  
  
When Ken wouldn't take them Brad turned towards the official. "How much does this booth take in on a good day?"  
  
The man shrugged. "Five hundred dollars, maybe six hundred."  
  
Brad gave him six hundred-dollar bills then added fifty dollars to it. "Consider this a good day and close down."  
  
Ken started to say something but Brad grabbed his arm and pulled him along. A second later his hands were around Ken's waist and with a gentle shove, he propelled Ken onto the ice.  
  
Ken would have protested loudly that he'd paid for something he'd planned to be free, that they didn't have to do this, that he would find something else they could do.  
  
Except that he'd forgotten one, little, itsy-bitsy detail.  
  
He had never ice-skated before.  
  
TBC ^__~ Comments onegai?  
  
Wai! I want a fanart of Brad and Ken skating on the ice! ^___^ Christmas gift? ^^  
  
Swyth: So Ken-kun, how's that for a birthday present?  
  
Ken: Why do I get a feeling I'm going to fall flat on my butt.literally?  
  
Swyth: *whistles and pretends she doesn't heara thing* Otanjobi Omedeto, Ken-kun! Who do you want for your birthday? Brad, Ran, Yotan, Farfie, Schuschu, etc. etc. ^^  
  
Ken: *sweatdrops* 


	5. Intimate Moments

Author: Swythangel  
  
Email: swythangel@hotmail.com  
  
Title: Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Type: 5/9 WAFF  
  
Teaser: Happiness is relative just as heaven is. An angel finds out that heaven is more than just a place upstairs as he falls to Earth.  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Spoilers:  
  
Warnings: Shonen Ai, Yaoi, definitely absolutely AU  
  
Disclaimer: Weiß Kreuz is not mine.they're Koyasu Takehito's, Project Weiß, Kyoko Tsuchiya and whoever else ^-^ "Daniel and the Angel" is an anthology by Jill Barnett in the book "A Holiday of Love". Its not mine, the idea is certainly not mine. I'm just adapting it to fit my twisted sense of storytelling.  
  
Keywords/Pairings: BradKen  
  
Lookie! ^__^ Me fast, me quick! Aren't you so happy? ^^  
  
  
  
Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Part 5/9  
  
For the second time since the car accident, Brad stared down at Ken. Last time it had been on hard pavement, this time he was sprawled facedown on the hard ice with Schuldich laughing hysterically behind him.  
  
Ken turned his head and looked up at Brad. "I've discovered something." He said with a ruffled expression in his eye. "Without wings, you can't hang onto thin air."  
  
::You noticed?:: Schuldich said, the mind-thought bubbling with laughter.  
  
Brad squatted down next to him. "Did you hurt yourself?"  
  
"Only my pride." Ken said with some humor in his voice as he pushed himself up on his hands and knees.  
  
Brad straightened and grabbed Ken by the waist as he picked him up off the ice. He set Ken down carefully and for no reason he could think of, left his hands where they were.on the slender waist of the brunette.just because it felt right.  
  
"I assumed you could skate."  
  
"So did I." Ken's blades slipped and he couldn't help the squeak of surprise that came out. Not wanting to fall, he grabbed at the one stationary thing that was in his vicinity, which happened to be Brad's waist and applied a death grip that even Farfarello, in Brad's opinion, couldn't break.  
  
Ken peered up at Brad, his face 10 degrees redder than it normally was and said, "It looks so easy."  
  
"Turn around."  
  
"Are you nuts? I can't do that without letting go."  
  
"Then let go and slowly turn around."  
  
""I can't do miracles." Ken muttered.  
  
/Stubborn./ Brad didn't even blink as he braced himself and spun Ken around so Ken's back was to him. Brad still held unto Ken's waist.  
  
Ken blinked at him for a second.  
  
"Keep your ankles together and your back straight. I'll help you."  
  
"You can skate." Ken said flatly.  
  
Brad's answer was to tighten his hands on Ken's waist and push off, skating smoothly and keeping Ken in front of him. While skating, Brad felt a heated hostile gaze on the back of his neck so he swung around but found no one looking.  
  
/Schuldich?/  
  
::Ja?::  
  
/Stop glaring at me./  
  
A mental rolling of the eyes. ::Why is it always me, mein Herr? It could have been Nagi. Or Farfarello but nooo, its always Schuldich.::  
  
/Did you?/  
  
::Nein. I didn't. And just so you know, no one did. Nagi and Farfarello would sooner glare at the little kitten than you.::  
  
/I could have sworn./ Brad brushed the thought and the feeling aside, shrugging as he continued to skate with Ken in his arms.  
  
***  
  
"Ran-kuuun!" Omi shouted as soon as the financier turned back around. "Stop glaring at his back! I swear he sensed that."  
  
The redhead dominion angel was floating in the air following the financier and ex-angel skating around the pond, glaring his best deathglare at Brad's back, sword arm twitching. It looked like he was trying to burn a hole into the man's back.  
  
"Leave Ran alone, Omiitchi." Youji said with a lazy smile. The Guardian Angel was sitting up in a tree, looking at the scene from a relaxed position. "The humans may sense us a little but they'll never really see us. The dominion is just experiencing a simple case of jealousy. It's quite natur---"  
  
"He shouldn't even be holding him." Ran interjected in a curt voice, his eyes never wavering from Brad and Ken. "Ken can skate on his own."  
  
Youji let out a bark of laughter at that. "Are you kidding us, Ran? The minute ol' Brad take his hands off of Ken, our dear friend will fall flat on his face." He shook his head affectionately. "Some things never change, in heaven or earth. And Ken being clumsy is one of those things. You wouldn't want Ken to hurt himself now do you?"  
  
Ran grunted. He couldn't dispute that fact. But he still didn't like the fact that the American was holding Ken tight.  
  
  
  
"It isn't everyday you'll see Ran exhibit any emotion at all, Omi, especially jealousy. You should enjoy this scene." Youji said, stealing a look at the youngest angel who had become quiet all of a sudden. What he saw made him blink and laugh out loud.  
  
Omi had shrunk himself and was perched on the Ice Prince's shoulder hugging the other's face like a stuffed toy. While the boy, Nagi, if Youji wasn't mistaken kept scratching at the cheek where Omi was plastered.  
  
/Who would have thought looking out for Kenken would spawn such interesting things.Certainly beats the movies anytime./ The blond guardian angel leaned back and enjoyed the tableau unfolding in front of him.  
  
***  
  
"You're wobbling, Ken. Keep your shoulders back."  
  
Ken straightened up at that and put his hands over Brad's. "You're right. It is easier!"  
  
He looked over his shoulder at Brad then, wanting to share the experience. His cheeks were flushed and he was grinning from ear to ear, brown eyes sparkling with enjoyment. "This is fun!" He chortled.  
  
Brad skated faster, until he could feel the cold air on his face, fogging up his glasses a bit. Ken's laughter rang out louder and clearer as he did so.  
  
Before long, the subtle scent of lemons drifted back to Brad mixed in the laughter that rang out in the pond. Ken's laughter, a pure sound.the sound of it did something strange to him. It made him want more. So round and round he skated just to hear the joy in Ken's voice.  
  
He was concentrating so much on the boy in his arms that he didn't even notice the other three who were stealthily sneaking away from the pond. Not that Brad would have cared right then.  
  
A compulsion to look down into Ken's smiling face overtook Brad and he obeyed it. He looked down at the same time that Ken looked up. An electric jolt of feeling ran through him to see such honest emotion so freely shown to him.  
  
Over time, he had come to accept that he was an outsider in a world where, no matter how much he spent or how much power he had, he never felt as if he belonged. For twenty-seven years there had been an emptiness in him.  
  
And now, for this one brief instant, doing something as mundane as skating on a park's pond with Ken looking at him as Ken did -- as if he had given Ken the whole world -- he thought that perhaps that emptiness could be filled.  
  
/Could it? This can be like all the rest. An illusion to be taken away. I can't trust so easily./  
  
It surprised Brad to think that he might have seen in Ken, this odd boy who claimed to be fallen, a small glimpse of that part of him that he had thought was lost.a part that, if he admitted it to himself, would make him complete.  
  
He forced himself to break contact, to reclaim his objectivity. "Now you try." He gave Ken a small push, and Ken yelled for help.  
  
Brad made no move to help, he just stood there watching Ken wobble and shuffle his feet, staring suspiciously at the ice as if he thought it would suddenly form ridges to trip him, occasionally swinging his arms when he lost his tenuous hold on his balance.  
  
Brad's mouth quirked in amusement. Then he cupped his hands around his mouth and in a voice just loud enough to carry, said, "Keep your back straight."  
  
Ken didn't straighten exactly.he went as stiff as a streetlamp.  
  
In the next few minutes, Ken must have called Brad's name with every breath, half yelling and half laughing, until he was coming at Brad at too fast a speed, his arms out and his mouth wide open. He was obviously out of control.  
  
Brad reached for him but he whipped past him.  
  
Newton's Law of Motion eventually stopped Ken in the form of a tree trunk. He hit it hard, hard enough to make Ken grunt. Hard enough to shake the tree and make the snow from the branches fall in giant clumps.  
  
To fall dead straight on Ken's head with a resounding 'phlump'.  
  
Brad laughed. He could do little else. Snow was everywhere, on his face, his hair, his clothes. Ken was covered with the sudden avalanche, his peripheral limbs the only things visible in the white stuff.  
  
After a bit of struggling Ken eventually was able to get out from under the snow. His eyes, what showed between the small clumps of snow on his lashes, were dancing like Christmas lights. They looked incandescent and was even now glaring Brad's way.  
  
Brad knew he should be helping Ken get rid of the snow but he couldn't stop laughing.  
  
After a moment, during which Brad finally had control of himself, Ken called out, "Hey, Brad!"  
  
Brad turned.  
  
"Here's something money can't buy!" Ken flung a snowball at him that knocked his hat right from his head.  
  
It was Ken's turn to laugh.  
  
Brad turned around to look for his hat then turned back as another wad of loose snow sped past his nose. "Lousy aim." Brad said as he skated towards Ken, slowly, with purpose. He didn't know that he was smiling but Ken did and it made Ken's smile grow wider.  
  
Ken stood in the fresh snow that edged the pond. "Isn't this fun?" he said as he flung another snowball at Brad.  
  
Brad had to dodge this one since close proximity compensated for Ken's erratic aim. Ken, meanwhile, had stepped back a few paces and bent down to scoop up more snow. Before he could form a ball he chanced to look up.  
  
Brad's purpose still hadn't changed.  
  
"Uh-oh." Ken said, apparently catching the vengeful gleam in Brad's eyes.  
  
A second later, Ken ran like hell through the snow, far away from Brad.  
  
Brad shouted Ken's name and though Brad had never before ran after anyone in his life, he ran after Ken into the deeper snow.  
  
Ken's red muffler trailed like a bright red banner, an easy beacon for the longer legged Brad to follow. He tackled Ken and they rolled in the snow, down a short embankment and under a cluster of low trees. She was still laughing when they stopped rolling, him on top, pinning Ken on the ground.  
  
Snow sparkled on Ken's face like DeBeer's diamonds. His muffler was crushed behind him and his hair was spread out in his face wild disarray, soft chocolate on white. Ken's chest rose and fell as each breath changed to mist in the small space of the air between them.  
  
And he smiled at Brad. A smile that seemed just for Brad.  
  
It felt perfectly natural to cup Ken's head in his hands. Natural to lower his mouth to Ken's. And natural to taste Ken when he gasped. But what happened after that was as unnatural as Ken was unconventional.  
  
Bradley Crawford heard bells.  
  
***  
  
Ken dreamed that night that Brad hadn't stopped kissing him in the park. He dreamed that Brad hadn't looked at him so strangely after. He knew that look. It was the same look the archangels had looked at her when he had knocked them off of Jacob's ladder.as if they couldn't believe Ken was real.  
  
And Ken almost had to wonder if the kiss was real. It was the closest thing to Heaven he had found on earth. He stretched and threw back the covers, swinging his bare legs down over the side and dangling them.  
  
Ken still slept in Bradley's silk shirt with the tails that brushed past his knees. Bradley was significantly taller than he was after all. But despite the lack of apparel under the shirt, he wasn't cold, even if frost did edge the windows. Crawford's household had central heating and if that wasn't enough, a fire crackled in the fireplace, compliments of Terry, the manservant who had brought Ken hot chocolate in the mornings and loaned him the skates.  
  
Morning light streamed through the bedroom windows. Ken stood up and depressed the button which opened the drapes automatically. On the street below, cars were struck in the traffic common to New York City, muffled honks filtering in the room just a little bit.  
  
Ken wondered what Brad was doing now. /Probably off to make more money./ Ken shook his head in disbelief. The man knew how much money he made by the minute.  
  
From this very same window Ken had watched Brad leave early this morning, when every sane human would still be asleep, accompanied by Farfarello (which only reinforced Ken's theory that sane people did not go out that early in the morning. Schuldich and Nagi went out at around 8 A.M.) Then he crawled back into bed and had an odd dream of Brad, Schuldich, Farfarello and Nagi skulking about town and carrying out missions with weird objectives.  
  
Ken frowned, and shook his head slightly.  
  
A sharp rap rattled the door. Ken jumped back into bed and pulled up the covers. "Yes?"  
  
The door opened slowly and Terry appeared. "Sir, your trunks have arrived."  
  
"My trunks?" Ken repeated stupidly.  
  
Terry nodded.  
  
Ken leaned to the left and peered past Terry out into the hall where dozens of boxes sat on the floor.  
  
Terry stepped back. "Your things. Mr. Crawford said they would arrive this morning."  
  
"He did?" Ken was still goggling at the vast amounts of boxes.  
  
"I'll run your bath, Mr. Ken, and you can relax while Radbert and I bring everything inside."  
  
Ken took the fastest bath in history. Then he asked Terry for some time alone. As soon as the manservant left, he flew into the bedroom, rebuttoned his shirt and just stood amidst the incredible amount of boxes. Ken was certain that there was enough in this room to clothe all of the homeless in New York City.  
  
A little while later Ken was convinced Brad had bought out at least half of New York City. There were clothes for EVERY occasion.tuxedos, three-piece suits, sweaters, pullovers, coats, shorts, shoes, socks.in every brand possible.Armani, Klein, Lauren, Girbaud, Nike.there were even boxers and denim jeans, leather tops and bottoms.  
  
::Aa, that's my idea. Crawford's too stuffy so I sneaked in a few of my selections. Nice huh?::  
  
/I don't even know how to put it on./  
  
::Oh, you'll learn.::  
  
/Don't you have work to do?/  
  
::As a matter of fact I do. Farewell then, little kitten, see you later.::  
  
When Schuldich finally left his mind, Ken plopped down on the floor near one of the piles. Ken felt an obligation to at least look at one of the clothes more closely eventhough he had never had interest in such things.if only because Brad had taken the trouble to buy them so he grabbed one of the boxes on top of the pile, lifted the lid and pushed the tissue aside.  
  
His heart stopped for one precious moment.  
  
Inside was a dressing robe of snow-white velvet, pure and shining, run through with tiny silver threads. The velvet was as soft and white as a cloud and the silver lining twinkled like so many stars. The robe almost resembled what they wore in heaven.a little part of Heaven. Ken's Heaven His only memory.  
  
He hugged it to his chest and just sat there for the longest time, misty- eyed and unaware that he wasn't alone.  
  
"I had thought you'd be pleased by this, seeing that your own clothes had been ruined." Brad stood in the doorway, watching with an edged look that said volumes. HE didn't understand Ken.  
  
"They're very nice."  
  
Nice wouldn't have been the word Brad chose to describe the expensive wardrobe but that wasn't his concern right now. "So nice you're crying again."  
  
Ken shook his head and said wistfully, "I was just remembering something I've lost."  
  
Almost immediately, Brad tensed. He looked angry. "Get dressed." His voice was tight.  
  
Ken didn't understand his anger.  
  
Brad's face had turned hard, and the look in his eyes were as black as his features. "Come downstairs quickly."  
  
"We're going out?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Brad paused for a moment, his hand on the door handle. He turned around. "I don't know who did this to you," He gritted out. "But I'd like to get my hands on them." And before Ken could say word, Brad shut the door.  
  
Ken stared, completely baffled. He had done this to himself. If Brad wanted to get his hands on the person who had created Ken's situation, Ken was right here.  
  
He dropped the dressing robe and walked back to the bed, grabbing one of the casual denim jeans and simple white shirts as he went to the dressing room, all the while thinking that after the kiss in the park, he knew he would be perfectly happy if Brad wanted to put his hands on him.  
  
***  
  
Brad handed Farfarello the papers and stood up. They left the library and went into the foyer where he leaned against the newel post and watched Farfarello carefully put the papers into his case. For someone who had an alter ego of a raving maniac, Farfarello was surprisingly very obsessive compulsive about neatness.  
  
Brad still hadn't mentioned anything about the release papers mainly because he knew that once the release papers were signed, he would have no reason to keep the brunette with him, and he wanted Ken to be here. With him.  
  
There was no plausible or logical justification for it.no acceptable explanation. Entertainment, challenges, companionship-- they all sounded weak and illogical.  
  
What it eventually boiled down to was that he didn't really want to explain to anyone what his motives were. For what motive can there be for keeping a boy who claimed he was homeless, a boy who was fallen.  
  
One thing he was sure of though.he didn't care fuck who or what Ken was. And that wasn't something he could analyze.at least not comfortably.  
  
The release could hang in limbo for all eternity. The paper annoyed Brad because it reduced Ken to nothing more than a signature on a piece of paper.  
  
Farfarello paused at the foot of the stairs. "I forgot to ask. Did you get the release signed?"  
  
"No."  
  
"This is important, Crawford. You've got to make him sign it. You know how Takatori and other high profile clients will react if they know that Schwarz was embroiled in a lawsuit. Even something as petty as this. Not good for the public image."  
  
Brad felt his hand tighten on the newel post. "I'll take care of it. Ken has been.intractable."  
  
Brad didn't flinch at the little lie that issued from his mouth. But his fingers twitched to push Farfarello out to whatever business he had to do for Schwarz. He took a step towards the door, but near the top of the stairs he caught a flash of white. He looked up with a sense of doom.  
  
Ken never looked down. Brad watched, stunned, as he sat on the banister.  
  
An instant later, Ken was sliding down the staircase, singing a song about this being better than wings in heaven. A few feet from the bottom, he deigned to look down and saw Brad. All he had time to say was a startled "Uh-oh".  
  
It was the last thing Brad heard before Ken sailed into him.  
  
"Oof."  
  
Brad lay on the marble floor of the foyer, trying to catch the breath that had been knocked out of him. He blinked, seeing glowing blinking stars first, then Ken's blurred surprised face. He shook his head to clear it.  
  
Ken lay atop him, his nose just inches away.  
  
Ken's sheepish gaze peered down at him. "You know." he said, shaking a finger in his face, "I was just thinking about you."  
  
"You slid down the banister.", he said in a disbelieving voice.  
  
Ken shrugged. "You said to come down. And quickly, you said."  
  
Brad sat upright quickly, holding Ken to him. Ken squeaked and grabbed his neck. They shared a look, a private look that spoke of what happened in the pond yesterday, and an instant later both of them were laughing.  
  
"Well, Crawford."  
  
Brad froze for a moment. Then he turned his head.  
  
Farfarello was leaning against the front door with an all-too-knowing look on his almost-crazed eyes. He smiled sardonically. "He does look.intractable."  
  
TBC ^___~ What else? C_____ts Onegai! Ehehehe!  
  
I love the ice skating scene I swear. One of the best scenes in the original version. ^^ Ken sounds so oblivious and innocent though I still like it that way. And there's RanKen *nods* well at least a little RanKen.ne, Bridget-chan? I'm still not out of RanKen ^^  
  
Four more chapters and we're through.  
  
Little RanKenBrad Omake of the Last Scene:  
  
Ken slides down the banister and sees Brad.  
  
Ken: Uh-Oh! *sails into Brad*  
  
Brad: *falls down on the floor* Ooof!  
  
*Ken is on top of Brad, their noses almost touching*  
  
Angel Ayan: Aaargh! That's the last straw. *katana appears in his hands* Shi-neeee! Shcwarz! *pokes Brad with the katana*  
  
Brad: *feels unidentifiable pain which pushes him up in startlement and his lips meet Ken's* *they kiss* Chuu!  
  
Angel Ayan: Noooo!  
  
Angel Yotan: That serves you right for interfering. 


	6. Chapter 6

Author: Swythangel  
  
Email: swythangel@hotmail.com  
  
Title: Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Type: 6/9 WAFF  
  
Teaser: Happiness is relative just as heaven is. An angel finds out that heaven is more than just a place upstairs as he falls to Earth.  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Spoilers:  
  
Warnings: Shonen Ai, Yaoi, definitely absolutely AU  
  
Disclaimer: Weiß Kreuz is not mine…they're Koyasu Takehito's, Project Weiß, Kyoko Tsuchiya and whoever else ^-^ "Daniel and the Angel" is an anthology by Jill Barnett in the book "A Holiday of Love". Its not mine, the idea is certainly not mine. I'm just adapting it to fit my twisted sense of storytelling.  
  
Keywords/Pairings: BradKen  
  
NOTE: ALL posts after this were made last January and posted in my yahoo ML.. A request was made for me to post these on ff.net and so here it is. Ignore the comments.  
  
Er, ah, Happy New Year? ^^ This isn't going to be finished before the New Year after all. Darn. But *shining eyes* minna will still make me a BradKen fanart ne? ne?  
  
Thank yews and worshipful stares for everyone who has made fanart for this ^___^ Me happy!  
  
It's a short part but well, its New Year ne?  
  
Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Part 6/9  
  
It had already been one of the longest days Brad could remember. After he'd gotten rid of Farfarello with some weak excuse they had both seen through, Brad had wanted to comfort Ken to make him forget about his past…and the only way he knew how to do it was to buy the boy anything he wanted.  
  
So he did the most natural thing -- he took Ken to the Ferrari Car Center.  
  
Ken had only looked at low-slung sports cars and found them "nice". Brad tried a different tact…he showed him motorcycles…the sleek Ducati got a spark of interest but only for a second before Ken ignored the Hondas and other brands along the line.  
  
Brad didn't know what to look at next. He tried Tiffany's. Youngsters these days loved to pin all sorts of adornments on their bodies…the diamonds were pronounced ok, the ruby and emerald cufflinks reduced to "those green and red stones in the thingamajigs" and the pearls…God…Brad wondered if he could ever look at pearls again and not picture in his mind the pain he had seen in Ken's face.  
  
Ken had looked at the pearls as if they were his shame. He then muttered about the gates to Heaven and quietly proceeded to ask every person in the store if they didn't think that pearls resembled angel tears.  
  
When Ken had not been looking, Brad had bought the "red and green stones in the thingamajigs" surreptitiously and asked them to be delivered to the house.  
  
Two hours later they finally stepped out from the store, a diamond dangling earring set in platinum swung from Ken's newly pierced left ear. Brad knew Ken had selected it out of charity. Brad had fibbed and told Ken that the clerk had ten children and worked solely on commission.  
  
So Ken had chosen the dangling earring, said it reminded him of an earring his friend Ran wore, not that Brad cared who Ran was…only that it made Ken brighten just a bit.  
  
***  
  
It was night and they rode in Brad's 8-door limousine towards the opera house, where the evening's symphony performance opened the holiday concert season. Brad did not really enjoy such functions but they were a necessity to his business because it was in these functions where Brad actually did most of his business.  
  
Normally, Schwarz accompanied Brad, their presence making the work more efficient. But tonight the three had other things to take care of so Brad had been set to go alone. That was…until Ken entered his life.  
  
Ken sat across from him, extraordinarily quiet, but looking like he had just stepped out of the pages of GQ. He looked like a model in the black formal Armani tuxedo and furlined cape, his normally tousled brown hair slicked back from his face, the diamond dangling from one ear.  
  
Brad couldn't understand it but there was a tension in the car which was as thick as gold bars and seemed almost as unpenetrable. He, a man who dealt with the most difficult men in the business world and could intimidate the best of them, could not seem to deal with this one boy named Ken.  
  
Brad had a feeling he could do little right where Ken was concerned. The day had been nothing but tension. He felt that he had been doing and saying exactly the wrong thing. Which bothered him when it shouldn't.  
  
Ken had taken his breath away when he'd come down the stairs…walking, not via the banister this time. And Brad had complimented him. Brad had thought that compliments would have made Ken feel better about himself.  
  
Ken had looked at him like he was daft or that Ken wanted to throw something at him.  
  
Now, as the limousine moved smoothly over the damp icy streets, Ken just stared out the fogged window, oddly silent and with no light in his eyes.  
  
"You're still unhappy."  
  
Ken looked at him sadly, then shook his head. "Not really."  
  
"I don't bloody understand. I've sat here for the last few minutes trying to figure out what the hell is wrong." Brad could hear the edge of anger leaking into his carefully controlled words. He thought to soften his words so he added, "I meant what I said."  
  
"When?"  
  
"Tonight. When you came downstairs, I told you how you looked."  
  
"Yes." Ken said as he turned back to the window again. "I remember. You said wealth suits me."  
  
From Ken's tone, one would have thought Brad had told him he had a wart on his nose. He felt so damned awkward. A first in so many years.  
  
All day, no matter what he did, he couldn't do anything to please Ken. It annoyed the hell out of him. The fact that he even tried to and that he even cared.  
  
The next moment the limousine stopped where the street ended and the opera house reigned. Brad waited for the chauffeur to open the door and stepped outside once the driver did so. He silently helped Ken down, and walked by Ken's side, only inches away from him, unconsciously guiding the boy.  
  
Just ahead of them, New York society crowded outside and on the steps like so many voracious predators out for prey.  
  
Out on the walks and along the neighboring buildings were the common people, out to get a glimpse of the Vanderbilts and the stars. Beggars too lined the sidewalks, clinging to worn ratty mufflers and rusty tin cans.  
  
Ken took one look at them and stopped abruptly, like he had instantaneously grown roots. He pulled away from Brad's side and walked away from him toward the line of the poor, his face transparent with the emotion he felt.  
  
"Ken."  
  
Ken ignored him.  
  
He watched, horrified, as Ken unscrewed the exorbitantly expensive dangling earring and made to toss it into the tin can.  
  
"What the hell are you doing?" He hissed out as he grabbed Ken's hand.  
  
Ken looked up at him in surprise, then concern. He looked at the beggars then back at Brad.  
  
"Someone has to help them." Ken placed a hand on his arm.  
  
He looked at Ken for a very long time. /God…have I ever been this innocent or kind?/  
  
"No matter how solitary your world is, Brad, not everyone is strong enough to make it all alone."  
  
Brad knew he had lost.  
  
Ken's voice became even smaller. "They could be fallen angels."  
  
Brad put a hand into his breastpocket. His voice was more gruff than he 'd have liked when he said. "Put the earring back on." He held out a handful of money.  
  
An instant later he received a gift worth more than any fortune.  
  
Ken's smile.  
  
****  
  
It was the longest night he could remember.  
  
Ken must have met a hundred people like Brad. The woman stared at him like they wanted to eat him, offering breathy invitations when Brad wasn't looking, "accidentally" brushing up against him intimately. The men talked about money and business while a calculated look shone in their eyes as they gauged just how important Ken was to Crawford. Some even made the same invitations the women had.  
  
He'd lost count of the number of people who said "Armani? Exquisite," never meaning a word they said.  
  
He wondered if Hell was in truth one big New York soiree.  
  
And Brad. From the moment they walked inside, he had kept Ken close to him, not touching but close enough for the others not to mistake just who was with who. When Brad had looked at Ken it was with a dark gaze that bordered on obsession, as if Ken was something necessary to him, desperately necessary.  
  
Brad caught him off guard because when he looked at Ken that way, Ken sensed a vulnerability in him that Ken had not seen before.  
  
Brad's gaze would intensify and he would look down at Ken as if he thought Ken might not be there.  
  
It made the night tense and difficult for Ken. He supposed he should be grateful that the long night had been cut short.  
  
There had been a harp solo.  
  
Ken sat in the balcony, his forehead resting on one hand, when…one by one…every harp string broke. A series of plink! Clink! Plink!  
  
There were some things that were the same whether he was in Heaven or Earth. Either that or God had a strange sense of humor.  
  
Now, over an hour later, he stood once again in the *gold* suite, dressed in Brad's silk shirt…the one he loved to sleep in. He looked out the window at a world he didn't understand. In a moment of unexplained whimsy, he reached out and drew a heart in the frost on the window.  
  
The moment he finished, he sensed that he was no longer alone. Ken turned.  
  
Brad stood in the room, half-turned away as he locked the door behind him. He turned back and leaned on the doorjamb, his arms crossed.  
  
He studied Ken as if he wasn't going to stop looking for a long time. He was still in his dress shirt and black pants but his tail coat and white tie were gone, two buttons near his collar undone.  
  
As casual as Brad appeared standing there, Ken knew that some part of Brad wanted to intimidate. He knew that it was protection. It was how Brad hid his vulnerable side…the side that held onto Ken because Brad had been afraid that Ken would leave him.  
  
Ken saw the rigidness in Brad's jaw, the tension in his neck, the pulse beating fast on his neck, the raw, there was no other way to describe it…raw need in Brad's shadowed eyes. Ken moved to the bed and sat in its center not knowing exactly why Brad was there.  
  
He cocked his head to look into Brad's face, velvet brown eyes looking for answers before he asked the question.  
  
Brad shoved off from the wall and moved towards him.  
  
"Why do you always look at me that way?"  
  
That stopped Brad just at the foot of the bed where he looked down at him from his intimidating height, a challenge in his eyes. "What way is that exactly?"  
  
"As if you're hungry."  
  
That startled Brad.  
  
He gave a quiet, sardonic laugh that said the joke was on him. "It's that obvious? I must be losing my poker face."  
  
Ken didn't know why but there was a force of some kind between them. There had been from the first moment Ken had ever seen Brad. Now that force was so strong he could feel the pull of it closing in, even the small space that separated them was charged by it.  
  
Brad placed one knee on top of the mattress, his hand reaching out to cup Ken's cheek, then slide through Ken's hair, holding Ken's head in his palm. He pulled Ken to him gently…too gently for a man with such power.  
  
With a touch as soft as a brush of snowflake, he kissed Ken. His hands moved to Ken's waist and lifted him, then he sat down on the bed, pulling Ken into his lap as he filled Ken's mouth with his tongue and tasted Ken.  
  
The stars in Heaven were with Ken suddenly in the wealth of emotion that confused him. Brad's fingers traced his jaw and Brad pulled his mouth away, only to kiss Ken's face and eyes, his cheek and ears, and finally, the hollow on Ken's neck.  
  
"Let me make you forget the past, Ken. Forget the people who ruined you."  
  
Ken blinked as he cupped Brad's smooth chin in his hands. "No one ruined me, Bradley, I ruined myself."  
  
Brad's eyes narrowed and he ran a thumb over Ken's bottom lip. "You're too generous. It takes two to make anyone into a prostitute."  
  
Stunned, Ken sat back, dropping his hands. "What?"  
  
"I know what happened to you. You cried about it after the accident."  
  
"You think I'm a prostitute?" Ken felt a smile tug at his lips.  
  
Brad gave him that penetrating look of his. "You admitted it, Ken. You said you were fallen and ashamed. You won't tell me where you are from. I assumed that's because you've been disowned."  
  
Ken laughed, just a small laugh, but a laugh just the same. Brad's dark scowl said he didn't think it was funny.  
  
"I'm not a prostitute, I'm a fallen angel."  
  
TBC ^__~ Comments onegai?  
  
Sappy ne? ^^ And a bit ooc for Brad but ah hell! I'm sticking to the book because its sappy and pretty romantic. It melts me into a puddle of goo to think of Brad obsessing over Ken. ^^;  
  
Hopefully we'll finish this before the first week is out. 


	7. Chapter 7a

Author: Swythangel  
  
Email: swythangel@hotmail.com  
  
Title: Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Type: 7/9 WAFF  
  
Teaser: Happiness is relative just as heaven is. An angel finds out that heaven is more than just a place upstairs as he falls to Earth.  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Spoilers:  
  
Warnings: Shonen Ai, Yaoi, definitely absolutely AU  
  
Disclaimer: Weiß Kreuz is not mine…they're Koyasu Takehito's, Project Weiß, Kyoko Tsuchiya and whoever else ^-^ "Daniel and the Angel" is an anthology by Jill Barnett in the book "A Holiday of Love". Its not mine, the idea is certainly not mine. I'm just adapting it to fit my twisted sense of storytelling.  
  
Keywords/Pairings: BradKen  
  
A bit late coming out with this part. Gomen gomen.  
  
*laughs* I just noticed that it says part Seven of Nine. ^__^ Wai Seven of Nine is a Borg on Star Trek Voyager. Ehehehe! Don't mind me I'm nuts.  
  
  
  
Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Part 7/9  
  
Brad grabbed Ken by the shoulders. "Call it what you like, Ken, prostitute, fallen angel. I don't really care. Your past is not my concern."  
  
"No." Ken shook his head. "I'm really an angel Or at least I was one."  
  
One of Brad's elegant brows quirked up in skepticism, thinking that Ken was making a joke.  
  
"I'm not kidding you. I had a halo and wings…molting wings to be sure but still…but I couldn't perform miracles so ---"  
  
Ken was lying, he could feel it and it was a blow to his pride. He tensed and stood up abruptly. "If you aren't interested in me, say so. Don't fuck with my mind with these ridiculous excuses."  
  
"It's the truth."  
  
"Surely you don't expect me to believe you're an angel?"  
  
"A fallen angel."  
  
Brad crossed his arms in the time-old defensive pose as he leaned against one of the wooden bedpost. "Prove it."  
  
"Prove it?" Ken blinked. "But I don't know how…I mean its…Darn." Ken sighed and lifted his chin to look directly at Brad. "You tell me how to make you believe me."  
  
"I don't know. You're the heavenly being." His voice dripped sarcasm as he waved his arms in anger, running his hands into his hair roughly as if he meant to pull it out. Ken winced in sympathy at Brad's hair. "Ask for divine guidance. Make the burning bush appear. Hell…sprout wings and fly around the bloody room."  
  
"Why are you so angry? Ken said quietly, tilting his head to look with confused brown eyes at Brad. "I can't help what I am."  
  
"They why are you making up this story? I told you I don't care what you are or even what you've been. But don't," Brad pinned Ken with a glare, "don't lie to me."  
  
"You won't believe me then."  
  
A little voice inside Brad wanted to say yes. That Ken, innocent sweet Ken could never lie to him. But the logical part of his brain, the part which had always governed his whole life even when he had been small, objected. The notion was preposterous.  
  
"You tell me you're an angel and then expect me to believe you? God, that's rich!"  
  
Ken gave him a look, that look -- the one that made brown eyes dim. It conveyed more than any words from Ken could ever do just how disappointed the younger man was with him. How Brad had let Ken down. "I'm not surprised you'd use such a phrase."  
  
He froze. "What's wrong with it?"  
  
"Do you really want me to answer that? Honestly?"  
  
"You're the angel." Brad could hear the cruelty in the laugh that he gave then, knew it was unfair but he couldn't help it. He was experiencing it too and human nature dictated he lash out. "You tell me."  
  
"Ok. You want the truth? I'll give you the truth. The painful truth." Ken's chin jutted out. "You think *only* in terms of money. Everything is money with you. And power. What did you do when you wanted me to get into the carriage? You offered me money. You try to buy everything. Everyone."  
  
Brad stood there, just watching Ken, listening to Ken tell him things he normally wouldn't have given a shit over if it came from someone else. But from Ken…he didn't care to listen to it at all.  
  
"You can't even give a compliment without mentioning your power and wealth. Did you say 'Ken, you look good in that suit'? No. You said 'Wealth suits you.'"  
  
Ken made him sound incredibly arrogant.  
  
"Don't you know there are more important things than fortunes or money or power?"  
  
He stood stiffly silent, shaking just a little with anger. /How dare he judge who I am, what I am. He does not even know me./  
  
But inside he knew that Ken was sincere, telling the truth like it was and he was only rationalizing his actions. But they, like so many things in his life, were weak handholds in the rockslide that was truth.  
  
/Leave me a little of myself left./  
  
"Is it truly that hard for you to understand? You shouldn't expect all people to be lower than you just because they don't have your money. They're still People, Brad, and they, like you, should be respected. Even the most ragged and beggarly person in New York is still a human being. Can't you find it in your heart to help them, even just one of them, all on your own?"  
  
Still Brad stayed silent, fighting himself just as much as he was fighting Ken, his jaws tight and his expression shuttered. Ken didn't notice, too engross in his own tirade. Ken's face was flush and his eyes bright with emotion.  
  
"Just look at your house."  
  
"What's wrong with my house?"  
  
"You collect things."  
  
"You make it sound like a criminal act. I assure you a lot of people do it."  
  
"Not criminal, no." Ken shook his head. "Sad." He swept a hand to encompass the room. "Look at this room."  
  
Brad gave it a cursory glance. There was nothing wrong with the room that he could see. It was, if truth be told, the best that his money could buy. "Yes?"  
  
"It's filled with collections. Priceless objects d'art, Persian rugs, Chippendale furniture…but nothing alive. And the color."  
  
"What about the color?"  
  
"Everything is gold, Brad. As if gold was the most important thing in the whole world. This is not a home a person lives in, this is a shrine to the almighty dollar!"  
  
Brad didn't even look at the room. He looked at Ken. "You criticize my house because I don't believe that you're an angel."  
  
"No. You don't understand."  
  
"You're the angel. Work a miracle and make me understand."  
  
Ken began to pace the room, a bundle of nervous energy. As he passed the bedpost, he suddenly stopped and grabbed onto it like a lifeline as he looked at Brad again. "It's Christmas. What's the first thought that comes into your mind when I say the word *Christmas*?"  
  
/Tipping./ The thought immediately sprang to his mind but Brad would no sooner be dragged across Hell and back before he'd admit it.  
  
"AH-Ha! Ken pounced on him. "You thought of money just then."  
  
"You're guessing."  
  
"I'm sure! The gleam of rapacity in your eyes was too hard to miss. Which just proves my point. Nowhere in this house is there a sign of Christmas. No tree, no mistletoe, no stockings…no nothing! And what about your servants?"  
  
A headache was starting to throb between Brad's eyes at Ken's mercurial changes in topic. He rubbed the bridge of his nose where the throbbing seemed to have taken up residence. "What about them?"  
  
"Did you give them a special holiday to be with their loved ones?"  
  
"They'll be more than amply compensated."  
  
"Money again." Ken walked over to him and placed his hands on Brad's chest, looking up at Brad as if he expected Brad to be something he wasn't…something he couldn't…or didn't want to understand.  
  
And Ken must have read that in his shuttered eyes. "Can't you understand? Can't you at least try?"  
  
The velvet brown eyes were pleading, soft like melted chocolate and no less sweet. When Ken looked at him that way, he almost thought he could be different from what he was. But he didn't know if he could give Ken what Ken wanted, what Ken asked. Because it scared the hell out of him.  
  
Brad's gaze moved to Ken's mouth, because he had to look at Ken. His look wandered slowly down the silk shirt and to legs that peeped out beneath them. His anger turned to want. The need, the obsession that seemed to want to consume him since the night they first met when Ken had caught him looking, returned with full force.  
  
He wanted Ken but his pride reminded him that for all his life he had had everything on his own terms. He always made the rules.  
  
"Don't look at me like that!"  
  
"Why not? I paid for the privilege."  
  
Ken flinched and backed away from him with a look in his eyes…like Brad had hit him.  
  
Brad stood unflinching and unmoving. Part of him wanted to take the words back but another part of him, the part that seethed with the anger, rejection and pride, did not allow him to move or speak.  
  
Everything was mixed up in his head…and in his heart.  
  
Ken had his hands raised as if to fend Brad off, the expression on his face unchanged, and he was muttering something under his breath, almost unconsciously. "I can't do this." Ken shook his head. "I can't"  
  
Ken looked ready to bolt.  
  
Brad's heart seemed to stop beating for a second with those words. He grabbed Ken's wrist then, staring at it in surprise as if he couldn't believe he had done it. Then in a strained voice he said "Don't leave, Ken. Don't leave."  
  
Ken watched Brad for a long time. "Brad," Ken said. "What is it? What are you so afraid of?"  
  
Brad didn't even blink. He held on to Ken's wrist like he was on the angry sea and Ken's wrist was his only lifeline. "Promise me. You won't leave like you did before."  
  
"Why?"  
  
That one word seemed like an electric jolt as Brad let Ken's wrist fall from his hands like it was a burning brand. He turned away…an alien feeling of vulnerability on him…making him feel naked before Ken's eyes. Brad didn't turn back, he left Ken standing there.  
  
He needed to think and he couldn't do it with Ken standing there and looking at him like that, He crossed the room briskly and opened the door.  
  
"Brad?" Ken's voice was so soft Brad wasn't so certain he'd heard it. He paused though and took a deep breath, as if to reinforce himself.  
  
"I'll stay."  
  
His deathgrip on the door handle loosened and he almost buckled as legs turned nerveless with relief. He nodded once because he couldn't find his voice, then he left, closing the door behind him.  
  
With the door closed, he let his tight control on his emotions go. /Just for a second./ And he leaned at the wall for a moment, then had an insane thought. /Perhaps Ken really *was* an angel./  
  
***  
  
Ken stood at the window and watched the limo Brad always used pull away from the house. He'd left later this morning than he did normally. So today all of Schwarz went to the office together, an event that only happened…well a first, actually.  
  
It had been accompanied by much bickering and glares from the rest. Schwarz being not the perkiest bunch in the morning. It had afforded Ken a few chuckles before they left the house as he waited and watched.  
  
As soon as the limo disappeared around the bend, he threw on a brown leather trenchcoat and belted it on.  
  
He walked to the bedroom door and stopped suddenly, snapping his fingers as if he had just remembered something. He ran back and grabbed a small pouch that was sitting on the chair, then went back to the door where he listened to make certain no one was in the hallway.  
  
He slowly opened the door, just a crack, and peered out. When he was sure the coast was clear, he crept stealthily out of the bedroom and hurried to the smaller stairway near the gallery. He looked down.  
  
The foyer was empty.  
  
Ken exhaled a sigh of relief and straddled the banister, sliding down as silent and quiet as a cat, landing perfectly on the foyer. A minute later he was running down the steps and away from the house.  
  
He never looked back.  
  
***  
  
TBC I thought I could finish part 7 but I couldn't so this is part 7a. ehehehe ^__^ Evil to hang it there ne? 


	8. Chapter 7b

Author: Swythangel  
  
Email: swythangel@hotmail.com  
  
Title: Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Type: 7b/9 WAFF  
  
Teaser: Happiness is relative just as heaven is. An angel finds out that heaven is more than just a place upstairs as he falls to Earth.  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Spoilers:  
  
Warnings: Shonen Ai, Yaoi, definitely absolutely AU  
  
Disclaimer: Weiß Kreuz is not mine…they're Koyasu Takehito's, Project Weiß, Kyoko Tsuchiya and whoever else ^-^ "Daniel and the Angel" is an anthology by Jill Barnett in the book "A Holiday of Love". Its not mine, the idea is certainly not mine. I'm just adapting it to fit my twisted sense of storytelling.  
  
Keywords/Pairings: BradKen  
  
Ok no more Seven of Nine jokes ^^ I'll just go on with this part…  
  
  
  
Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Part 7b/9  
  
Brad stood at his office window and watched the traffic on the street below ignoring Schuldich and Farfarello's bickerings as well as Nagi's rhythmic tapping on his precious laptop. He looked like he was waiting for something.  
  
And Schuldich, ever curious Schuldich, noticed. /What is distracting our Fearless Leader this early in the business day?/ He mindthought as he tried to rifle through Brad's surface thoughts.  
  
Even before Brad could think a sharp reply, he saw a young boy in messenger red and gold streak through the streets. It distracted him from Schuldich.  
  
/Eh? What is so interesting about a messenger?/  
  
Brad didn't even deign to answer the nosy question. He sat down to wait until finally the messenger burst into the room, cheeks red with exertion and panting.  
  
"I went as fast as I could, Mr. Crawford." The boy gasped out. "I spoke to your butler, and he said to tell you that Mr. Ken was still asleep."  
  
Three sets of eyes, brown, green and gold turned Brad's way in curiosity but Brad didn't notice because he had closed his eyes and sagged back into the chair. The tension that had been inside him all morning draining away at the message.  
  
/So that's what this is all about? Gott! What's the matter? Lover's quarrel?/ The amusement in the tone could not be disguised. /Wore him out making up?/  
  
/Shut up Schuldich./ Brad glared the German's way. Then he turned towards the boy with a twenty dollar bill in his had.  
  
"Thank you Sir!" The boy told him and turned to leave,  
  
"Will?"  
  
The boy paused and turned back. "Sir?"  
  
"Where's your family?"  
  
Will's eyes grew large as saucers, his incredulity evident in the slack- jawed look on his face. This astonishment was mirrored in the faces of the other Schwarz members.  
  
/Did I hear that right?/ Nagi mindthought to Schuldich.  
  
/Either you did or everyone in this room is experiencing some form of mass hallucination, bishounen./ Schuldich thought back, enjoyment clear in his tone. /Even Farfie there thinks that God is fucking with his mind./  
  
/I don't blame him. Crawford has *never* noticed the hired help before let alone ask about anyone's family./  
  
/Perhaps a little kitten has changed his mind./  
  
/Perhaps./ Nagi said, rolling his eyes, /or perhaps we are all going insane./  
  
/It is frightening to think that Mein Herr Leader, formidable Bradley Crawford the All-Powerful, can ever feel the least little bit concern is it, bishounen?/  
  
/More like a miracle./  
  
Schuldich and Nagi's conversation was interrupted by the messenger's voice as Will finally recovered from his incredulity.  
  
"In Hoboken, Sir."  
  
Brad nodded and turned to look out the window. "If one wanted to buy some Christmas greenery , and perhaps a tree, where is the best place to go?"  
  
"The freshest greens are at the Washington Market near the docks at the North River." [Author's note: I put in the same location the original. My geographical knowledge of the United States extend to the names of just a few states. I sure as hell wouldn't know where everyone goes to buy their trees in New York. So if the info isn't correct…pardon me ne?]  
  
"I see." And with that Brad fell to silence, Minutes pass and he never even moved. The messenger was shifting from foot to foot by now feeling like he had been forgotten.  
  
He cleared his throat. "Is that all, Sir?"  
  
"Yes." Brad said, turning to face the boy again, reaching into his breast pocket for his wallet and pulling out a couple of hundred bills. He stared at them for a moment before he looked at Will and said: "Take off the two days before Christmas and spend them with your family."  
  
"But sir--"  
  
"With pay. I have decided to give everyone in Schwarz Industries the two days off. I will be sending a memo to announce this in a few minutes."  
  
Will couldn't believe his good fortune. He grinned at Crawford. "Yes, sir!"  
  
Brad watched the door close, then heard a loud whoop echo down the hallway. His lips twitched a little as he sat back down onto his chair. The room was strangely silent he noticed not even the perpetual clacking noises of Nagi's keyboard. He looked up. To find the others staring at him.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Nothing." Farfarello said.  
  
"Good. We've still got a lot of work to do." Brad told them before turning back to his own computer.  
  
And as one, the three other Schwarz members got back to their work, physically that is. Mentally all three conversed with each other on the turn of events.  
  
/That is not Bradley Crawford, Schuldich. In all our years working in Schwarz, he has never ever given anyone a holiday leave. Some alien is controlling him./  
  
/Calm down bishounen. I'm sure you realize the ridiculousness of that proposition./ Schuldich laughed/ /Wait a while, I'm linking Farfie. He has his own theory./  
  
/God has finally realized we are hurting him. He seeks to circumvent our plans by driving Crawford insane./  
  
/I hate to say this but I agree with Farfarello. Crawford must have snapped./ Assent from the Japanese boy echoed in both their minds.  
  
/Or maybe,/ Schuldich interjected, /*someone* has gotten under his skin and changed his mind about his priorities in life. Ever think about that?/  
  
/Ken./  
  
/Ken./  
  
Farfarello and Nagi said at the same time. Both knew that whatever Schuldich would say would be the truth, sometimes only part of the truth but truth nonetheless. He always kept an eye on everything.  
  
/Ken, yes./  
  
/God has sent Ken to drive Crawford insane then./  
  
/Shut up Farfie./ Nagi said, annoyed then to Schuldich he said: /What do we do?/  
  
/We do nothing bishounen./  
  
/But--/  
  
/But nothing. Ken has done nothing wrong. Crawford is changing, yes, but its nothing that will impair his ability to function as leader. So we do nothing. Besides,/ Schuldich thought before he severed the link, /I would love to see if the little kitten can actually take the stick out of Mein Herr Leader's ass. God knows someone has to./  
  
"Schuldich, Nagi, Farfarello…finish your work in thirty minutes. We are going out."  
  
"And just where are we going, Mein Herr?"  
  
"Washington Market."  
  
No one even blinked. Somehow it didn't seem surprising.  
  
***  
  
From his perch up in heaven's cloud, a blond blue-eyed angel was almost bouncing in delight.  
  
"He's doing it, Youji-kun! Ran-kun!"  
  
"Hn." The dominion grunted, all the while glaring down at the bespectacled man on Earth.  
  
"Don't celebrate yet, Omi. Its not finished yet. You never know. Anything can happen."  
  
"Yes but…"  
  
"I, for one do not care what else happens, just as long as that…miscreant does not come an arm's length near Ken again."  
  
Youji's lips struggled to stay impassive as he watched the redhead's sword hand twitch near his scabbard. He had no doubt that the dominion wanted to slice the financier to bits and it had been a constant source of amusement for Youji to look at Ran, normally imperturbable Ran, so worked up.  
  
"I'd say that's impossible, Ran. How can Ken even reform Crawford if he doesn't come near him?"  
  
"Shut up Youji."  
  
Youji laughed then sobered as he heard Omi chattering to himself. "I just know Ken-kun will be able to return to Heaven in no time."  
  
/Oh I do not doubt that either Omi. The question is…/ He looked down on Earth, remembering the unusual light in Ken's eyes as he looked at Crawford, how the younger ex-angel blushed when Crawford was near. /The question is would he want to go back?/  
  
***  
  
Brad strolled through the marketplace where Christmas greens were piled like cordwood along the walks and twined up awning posts and around storefront windows. There were small booths festooned with more of the Christmas wreaths and leaves that made them look like arbors. The whole place smelled of fresh greenery.  
  
"Can we go now? My arms are getting tired." Nagi sighed from behind Crawford. The young bishounen was laid down with Christmas wreaths and whatnots in baskets.  
  
"At least you're not *wearing* them." Farfarello said dryly. Three ropes of greenery hung from around his neck just as he wrestled with a whole pile of hollys, mistletoes and rolls of ribbon. "I am not enjoying this one bit. This does not hurt God. This makes him happy. Where is Schuldich anyway? He's suppose to be helping."  
  
"He's the one hunting down a tree." Brad told them. Even the financier was loaded down with other Christmas ornaments and greenery. "Schuldich is the only one who even knows what kind of tree would be more appropriate."  
  
"And just who told you that?" Nagi said suspiciously.  
  
"Schuldich did."  
  
"And you believed him?" Farfarello said. "Its probably just an excuse to get out of helping us carry these…these whatever they are."  
  
"No I didn't believe him. But someone had to go look for a tree. And I don't see anyone else volunteering."  
  
"Can we just put this into the limo?" Nagi said, changing the topic.  
  
Brad knew that as soon as he let the other two go, he would not see them again until the next day. /I think we have everything we need./ "Alright." He said.  
  
And even before he could blink the two were off. He shook his head a little in amusement before he continued on his way. He walked along, breathing the pungent clean scent of pine trees and trying to picture Ken's face.  
  
It wasn't difficult. Ken was standing just a few feet away.  
  
He was bent over a little girl who was looking at Ken with serious wide innocent eyes. The girl held a tin whistle in one hand and a brass bell on the other.  
  
Brad moved closer to listen.  
  
"Yes, Judy, its true." Ken was saying. "Didn't you know that?"  
  
The little girl shook her head.  
  
"I have a little rhyme to help you remember. Do you want to hear it?"  
  
Judy nodded.  
  
Ken squatted down then until his brown eyes were level with the little girl's blue ones and he said: "Everytime a whistle sounds, an angel falls to the ground." Ken paused, an exaggerated frown on his face as he shook his head dramatically.  
  
The little girl giggled.  
  
"And everytime a bell rings, an angel gets its wings." Ken smiled and nodded vigorously.  
  
Judy looked at the whistle and then at the bell. She put the whistle down and ran off to tell her mother that she wanted the bell instead. Personally, Brad thought he would have done the same thing after seeing how happy it would make Ken.  
  
Ken straightened, then bent down again to pick up a basket of greenery. Smiling at the retreating form of the little girl with her mother, he turned…and froze the moment he saw Brad.  
  
Brad didn't move. "I thought you were still asleep."  
  
"I thought you were still in your office."  
  
Nothing else was said. The scene from the night before was still too fresh in their memories, too sensitive…it made the moment now awkward and tense.  
  
And then Ken looked down to see his baskets. "Shopping?"  
  
Brad glanced down, then shrugged. "Yes."  
  
Ken held up the basket. "Looks like we had the same idea."  
  
Brad then remembered he had never given Ken any money at all. He felt stupid. Another first for Bradley Crawford.  
  
He wanted to ask Ken how he paid for all his purchases but after the lecture Ken had given him the night before he didn't know how to say it. He eyed Ken's basket for a moment, then said: "I'm not certain how to say this, especially after last night, but I have neglected to give you any money."  
  
Ken flushed and looked everywhere bit at him for long minutes. Brad just stood there and waited for the answer. Finally Ken sighed and told Brad. "I pawned the earring." He said, turning his head to the size to show Brad an ear devoid of the ornament that had been the only thing that had interested Ken in Tiffany's.  
  
"The ones you said were just like your friend's?"  
  
Ken nodded and Brad sighed. "Where's the pawnshop?"  
  
Ken pointed. "Down the street a few blocks down."  
  
"Come on." Brad headed down the street, Ken by his side.  
  
"You should have pawned the cufflinks."  
  
"I couldn't do that."  
  
"Why the hell not?"  
  
"Because they don't mean as much as the earring does."  
  
Brad stopped and looked at Ken. "That makes sense."  
  
Ken gave him a small smile.  
  
"It shouldn't make sense. Don't ask me why but for some illogical reason it does." He turned and pulled Ken down the street.  
  
Half an hour later they stood beneath the sleek electrical sign that hung above Seska's Pawnshop and Brad was screwing the diamond earring back onto Ken's ear.  
  
Ken touched the earring when Brad finished, a lambent look in brown eyes. "Thank you."  
  
Uncomfortable, Brad adjusted his glasses and looked away. "I sent Schuldich to buy a tree."  
  
/Got one already, Mein Herr. I'm going home with it right now./  
  
Ken's smile was bright enough to melt the snow.  
  
Two hours later, the limousine left the market, the back seat filled with baskets of Christmas decorations, greenery and mistletoes. Ken was nestled in the middle holding a cornhusk doll in the shape of an angel.  
  
"Isn't it just wonderful?" He said, admiring the doll.  
  
Brad looked at Ken. Only at Ken. "Yes. Wonderful."  
  
Ken looked up then and saw something out the window that caught his eye. In a flash he had plastered his face on the window near him. Brad turned just as they passed a German bakery, its windows filled with a fairyland of gingerbread castles.  
  
Brad opened the intercom. "Stop here, Jones."  
  
When the limo stopped, Brad gracefully got out. He was about to help Ken out but the younger man was faster than he was. Ken got out of the car and headed straight for the window display like a bee to honey.  
  
The window display was lit by decorative lights, its glass frosted with pseudo-snow. It had intricate castles and houses that had snow icing on the roofs. Gingerbread soldiers in full uniform rode horses with trappings and manes of sugary white. There were gingerbread ladies and children too laced with marzipan. And animals and dolls…  
  
Three gingerbread men later, Brad and Ken left the bakery and Ken handed Jones a cookie shaped like a sportscar. He always thought of someone else before himself. He didn't want wealth or things. He wanted so little. Brad wondered if Ken had ever wanted anything just for himself.  
  
Then Ken saw the puppies. Small light brown canine heads with floppy ears, wagging tongues and bright red bows tied around their necks poking out of a street vendor's basket. Brad didn't even get the chance to blink as Ken rushed towards the puppies, making small sounds of delight, like a Vanderbilt rushed to Tiffany's.  
  
"Brad, look!"  
  
And he did look. But not at the puppies who were licking Ken's chin and cheeks. Nor the kittens and the rabbits as Ken moved from one basket to another.  
  
He looked at the joy on Ken's face and wished, irrationally, that he could give Ken that kind of happiness for every single day of his life.  
  
Ken who preferred puppies to sports cars, kittens to jewelry, rabbits to…  
  
He looked down at Ken and scowled. "No rabbits, Ken. Puppies…yes and kittens too. But no rabbits."  
  
TBC 


	9. Chapter 8

Author: Swythangel  
  
Email: swythangel@hotmail.com  
  
Title: Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Type: 8/9 WAFF  
  
Teaser: Happiness is relative just as heaven is. An angel finds out that heaven is more than just a place upstairs as he falls to Earth.  
  
Rating: NC-17  
  
Spoilers:  
  
Warnings: Shonen Ai, Yaoi, definitely absolutely AU  
  
Disclaimer: Weiß Kreuz is not mine…they're Koyasu Takehito's, Project Weiß, Kyoko Tsuchiya and whoever else ^-^ "Daniel and the Angel" is an anthology by Jill Barnett in the book "A Holiday of Love". Its not mine, the idea is certainly not mine. I'm just adapting it to fit my twisted sense of storytelling.  
  
Keywords/Pairings: BradKen  
  
I'm leaving for a week to Hong Kong starting Sunday so I won't be posting anything for a week. I was hoping to finish this before then but it just wasn't possible. Gomen ne.  
  
A gift though before I go…because I'm leaving you with a cliff hanger…^^ There's a lemon scene here. My first lemon scene. ^^ It's a bit stilted and you can blame the villain called prudishness sitting on my shoulder while I write this. And of course, getting sick in Sex Education classes so I don't know the mechanics of sex, het or otherwise. ^^  
  
I hope you guys enjoy this though. I liked this part. ^^  
  
  
  
Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Part 8/9  
  
The rabbits were chewing on Brad's shoes.  
  
Ken sat on a chair in the open parlor, his lap full of wiggling puppies while purring kittens crawled on the arms and wings of the chair, scratching the fabric as kittens were wont to do. Ken was stringing cranberries and smiling at Brad.  
  
Brad was on his hands and knees in front of a brass bucket filled with sand, muttering and turning the trunk of the Christmas tree. It was his third attempt to get the tree straight.  
  
"It looks fine to me." Ken told Brad.  
  
He backed out, scowled at the two gray rabbits for a moment before he shifted away, eyeing the angle of the tree. "A little more to the right."  
  
Ken rolled his eyes and tied a knot in the string of cranberries.  
  
Schuldich laughed. "You have to understand Crawford, kitten. He's meticulous about these things."  
  
"Single minded." Farfarello added as he concentrated on his own string of popcorn.  
  
"Obsessive compulsive." Nagi chimed in, smiling a little. The Japanese didn't want to admit it but he was enjoying making decorations. He had never done it before in his life but Ken's enthusiasm had been infectious.  
  
"See?" Schuldich laughed.  
  
"Shut up." Brad glowered as he sat down near Ken and started a new string of cranberries.  
  
The formal parlor was a mess. A huge bowl of popcorn sat in the center of the Savonnerie carpet, a trail of plump kernels lead to the tree where rabbits nibbled at some of them.  
  
Scraps of tinsel and string had been scattered by tumbling puppies and playful kittens until the center of the room where settees by William Kent formed a conversation area, looked like the aftermath of New Year's Eve in Times Square.  
  
Brad had tried to call the servants to help them with the decorations just to keep the whole house looking more like his house and not a disaster area but Ken had said firmly that they had to be the ones to do the decorations or it would not be fun at all.  
  
And that had been that.  
  
The entire lower floor of the Crawford mansion was filled with the scent of Christmas. By the time the grandfather clock struck eleven, the tree was decorated and greenery hung throughout the front of the house. Tied with red ribbons, cedar and laurel, pine and holly hung from pictures and mirrors and wrapped around the bases of the candelabra. Mistletoes hung hidden in doorways and other unsuspected places thanks to Schuldich.  
  
Tinsel glinted silver from everything.  
  
The rabbits, puppies and kittens were tucked into their baskets under the tree, exhausted after an evening of chasing string and cranberries as well as Brad's shoes.  
  
"Now it looks like Christmas." Ken said, putting his hands on his hips and smiling in satisfaction on their handiwork.  
  
"Gott! I can't believe we did all this!" Schuldich said tiredly as he looked around the house.  
  
"Me neither." Nagi seconded. "I'm going to my room to hibernate now."  
  
Schuldich and Farfarello followed Nagi up the stairs.  
  
"Good night, everyone!" Ken called after them. "And thank you!" When the three had disappeared up the second floor, Ken turned to ask Brad. "How about you, Brad, aren't you…" He turned just in time to catch the look on Brad's face.  
  
Brad stood next to Ken, silent and looking at the tree. His expression was naked and open and for one brief instant filled with such desolation that Ken was unable to breath.  
  
Ken reached out and touched Brad's arm. Because somehow he knew he had to, because somehow he sensed that Brad needed the physical contact as he relived some memory.  
  
"Brad." Ken whispered.  
  
He didn't respond, didn't even move for a good long while. Finally he looked at Ken as if he had just noticed that Ken was beside him.  
  
Ken searched Brad's face for answers and saw nothing but a shuttered look and an impassive expression. Ken sensed the hidden pain, fear and other emotions so personal that Brad kept inside.  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
Brad adjusted his glasses and ran his hands through his hair, idiosyncrasies that Ken was learning to recognize. He could almost see the tightness around Brad's eyes.  
  
Brad had, over the years, learned to hide his emotions from the world.  
  
"I haven't had a Christmas tree since I was eight." He didn't look at Ken. He stared at the tree.  
  
Ken suddenly had a horrid sinking feeling. "Do you want to get rid of it?"  
  
"No." Brad said in a clipped voice as he shook his head. "Its not the tree. I never had the time for one. I was always working too hard, and then when I did have time…" He shrugged. "It didn't matter anymore."  
  
"Do you want to talk about it?" Ken ventured.  
  
"No." Brad laughed without humor, then turned to Ken.  
  
"I think perhaps you should."  
  
Brad leaned his hip on the edge of a nearby table and crossed his arms. "Why?"  
  
Ken knew this was Brad Crawford in his stubborn mode but Ken could be as stubborn as Brad could. He mimicked him, crossing his arms and jutting out his chin. "You tell me."  
  
Brad didn't look at Ken in the eye but he turned and strode into his sanctum with Ken following behind him. He stopped just near the fireplace where a fire burned low. It was there not for the heat, the mansion had a central heating system. It was there for the ambience it provided. Brad stared at it, a play of shadows dancing on his face, the fire reflecting on his glasses.  
  
His back was to Ken. "My family was one of the most distinguished families in New York City, respectable and rich, used to power. I've always been used to money. What you said the other night made me think about what I am, Ken. Why I am. Whether I have put money and power before anything else in my life." He turned back to Ken. "I think its true."  
  
"My father was a very hard taskmaster, always demanding the best out of everyone around him, especially his only son and heir. I had to be the perfect son. And I was. I did everything he ever wanted. At the age of seven I went with him to his office to learn how everything worked.  
  
He was proud of me for awhile until I started to have visions. I couldn't control it then and I often just fell down and babbled on the floor.  
  
He was horrified. An oracle for a son, a mutant. You see, Ken, my father was a very conventional man, he thought that anything concerned with extra sensory perception was a thing of the devil. And in that time, anything strange was outcast, reviled. He was scared that if people found out about me, his business would topple, that he would lose all his money.  
  
So he disowned me, cut me off and made my cousin his heir. He threw me out of the house with nothing but my clothes on and a few hundred dollar bills. My mother never said a word, horrified of people knowing that her son was different, scared of being outcast from the society she moved in. She never gave a thought for the little boy who wandered the dangerous streets alone.  
  
I was eight then and it had been Christmas if I remember… my childhood officially ended that day. I changed my family name and did everything to survive, used my powers to my advantage just so I could eventually take revenge in the only way I knew how. I had to prove to my parents that I could make it out alone and grow to even greater power than they had, even hampered with what they had termed as a mutation, a gift from the devil.  
  
And I imagined then that they would take me back and acknowledge that I was their son."  
  
Brad looked around the room, his gaze stopping on each priceless piece of art that adorned the walls. "Over the years I learned to distinguish those people who were like me, different from the rest and burning with the same drive. Schuldich, Farfarello and Nagi…my oracular visions led them to me and together, as Schwarz, we were able to achieve what you see now.  
  
I revealed myself to my family when I finally had amassed more wealth than they could dreamed of, thinking they'd welcome me with open arms." Brad stopped and stared at the fire again.  
  
"And then?" Ken prodded.  
  
Brad barked a sharp laugh. "I couldn't have been more wrong. They told me they had no son with my name and then told me to leave," Brad smiled a bitter smile. "I stole my ex-father's company through a take-over a month after that."  
  
"After that there was nothing left but my work and the power…At least that affirmed my existence. Sometimes, too, there's an elusive sense of pleasure to be had in knowing that I have enough power to force people to acknowledge me."  
  
"I realized this morning how skewed my perception on life is."  
  
Ken looked at Brad who was staring melancholy at the fire.  
  
"Strange. It still hurts to remember it." He whispered, almost to himself.  
  
"Brad, I'm sorry I said those things."  
  
"Don't be. They needed to be said."  
  
Ken stood there, feeling awkward because he could feel the pain radiating from Brad and Ken wanted to run to him to comfort him, but Ken was afraid.  
  
"Can we start over? No challenges, no bets, no deals. And no questions. You can stay here as long as you want to, Ken."  
  
Ken didn't know what to tell him.  
  
"Will you stay?"  
  
Every person Brad had ever cared about had left him in one way or another except for Schwarz. And even them he could not fully bond with, each had his own tragic past to get over first. Perhaps Ken understood how that. Ken understood him.  
  
Ken couldn't leave Brad. Not now. Not when he was so confused and fast feeling as if Brad was a part of him. Deep inside he didn't want to leave Brad.  
  
Ken looked up and nodded. "I'll stay."  
  
There was a minute flash of relief in Brad's eyes. He gave Ken a slow and lazy smile that made Ken draw in his breath with the wonder of it. So much that it barely registered on him when Brad looked pointedly above him.  
  
Ken followed Brad's gaze to where a giant ball of mistletoe hung from the crystal chandelier directly above him, courtesy of Schuldich.  
  
Two steps and Brad had closed the distance between them. He lowered his mouth to Ken's and kissed him softly, tenderly.  
  
Ken instinctively slid his hands around Brad's neck and returned his kiss, his taste. Brad groaned and his arms held Ken tightly as he lifted the younger man to him.  
  
The kiss seemed to last forever and at the same time not long enough. Brad pulled back with Ken against his chest. He rested his chin on Ken's head, his breath a little fast. Ken could hear his heartbeat through his chest.  
  
"Whenever I kiss you, it's the strangest thing. I swear I could hear bells."  
  
Ken smiled into his silk shirt. "Then perhaps you should kiss me more often."  
  
"Then again, I also seem to feel a pinprick of pain at the back of my head everytime."  
  
***  
  
Out of human hearing and perception, two chibi blond angels, a novice and a guardian angel, wrestled with a redhead dominion who was waving his sword around in the financier's direction.  
  
"Ran-kuun! Stop it!"  
  
"There's only one way to do this Omi." Youji said as he finally got Ran's sword and slammed the hilt at the side of the angel's head. Ran slumped, unconscious. "There." Youji said in satisfaction.  
  
"Did you have to hit him so hard, Youji-kun?"  
  
"What other alternative did we have, Omi? Now shut up and enjoy the show."  
  
***  
  
"You do?" Ken peeked up at him. "Then you probably should stop doing it altogether."  
  
Brad laughed and pulled him in for another long kiss. "And miss out on all the fun?"  
  
Ken hugged him tight. "Perhaps you should stick to the original suggestion then."  
  
"Perhaps you should go to bed before I do and then can't stop." He released Ken and stepped back, his look only for Ken.  
  
Ken smiled and went up the stairs, feeling Brad's gaze warm him all the way to the top. He stopped at the landing and turned. "Brad. You know what they say about bells. Every time a bell rings--"  
  
Brad smiled and finished the phrase for him, "An angel gets its wings."  
  
***  
  
The next two days were theirs alone.  
  
They went to the park and skated again. Well that wasn't exactly true. Brad skated. Ken fell.  
  
They joined the throng of shoppers in the downtown malls. With hundreds of others they watched as a huge Christmas tree lit with a thousand Christmas lights was rolled into the hospital's Childrens Ward. Every branch of the tree was laden with gifts for the patients, compliments of Schwarz Industries.  
  
But the best Christmas present Ken received came in the form of laughter.  
  
Ken had met Brad at the top of the stairs one evening. And Brad had stopped. "Go on down to dinner. Schuldich and the others will be waiting. I forgot something."  
  
Ken had walked down the stairs humming "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", a kitten tugging at his pant's leg and two puppies yapping in his arms. He reached the bottom step.  
  
There was a loud whoop.  
  
An instant later, Brad slid down the banister, off the newel post, and sailed into the foyer just as Radbert opened the front door.  
  
Brad kept going.  
  
He bounced down the icy marble steps until something on the sidewalk finally stopped him.  
  
His business associate, the senator, Reiji Takatori.  
  
Schuldich's laughter echoed in the hallway even as Nagi rushed down to help the senator, mumbling abject apologies in Japanese.  
  
***  
  
"I'm not certain I'll ever be able to sit again," Brad winced as he crossed the library and handed the Senator a drink.  
  
Takatori took the drink. "You weren't at the Van Cleves' dinner party last night.  
  
Brad took a sip of the Merlot he had taken for himself. "No."  
  
"Esset was there."  
  
"I'll call and set up a meeting with them sometime next week."  
  
"I've never known you to miss an opportunity like this. That Group has a fortune to invest."  
  
Brad didn't respond.  
  
"Farfarello told me about the boy you almost ran over. That was him with Schuldich?"  
  
Brad nodded.  
  
"Have you gotten that release signed?" The look Takatori gave him spoke volumes.  
  
"I told Farfarello I'd take care of it and I will."  
  
"Tell me something." Takatori said, lighting a tobacco.  
  
"What?"  
  
"What is he to you?"  
  
"I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
"You damn well know what I mean, Crawford."  
  
"Stay out of it, Takatori."  
  
"I've never seen you act this way about anyone."  
  
"He's different. Leave it at that." Crawford told Takatori. He had known the night he took Ken to the concert. Ken had looked perfect but he'd been too quiet and out of place in te crowd -- like a precious stone subjected to the rigorous tests of harsh conditions.  
  
Ken had lost his luster. He felt some odd need to protect the younger man from anything that would or could hurt him, anything that would steal Ken's laughter.  
  
Takatori got up and set his glass down. "I'm not here to pass judgement. I was concerned. I am your business associate after all."  
  
"Don't be. I can handle this."  
  
"Will I see you at the Vanderbilt's soiree?"  
  
Brad shook his head. "I won't be present at any function until after Christmas."  
  
Takatori went to the door and opened it, then paused. "I hope you know what you're doing."  
  
"I'm fine. Everything will be fine." Brad said, but he wasn't certain if he was talking to Takatori or to himself.  
  
***  
  
A grandfather clock down the hall struck two.  
  
Brad didn't move, didn't even breath.  
  
Ken stood by light of his bedroom window, the moon shining down on his golden form, infusing his skin with a silver light…it made Ken look like the angel he claimed to be.  
  
"You can't sleep either." Brad ventured.  
  
Ken shook his head. "No."  
  
Ken hadn't looked at him but he could see that Ken had known he was there. It didn't surprise him. There was something between them, an invisible link that bound them together as surely as a physical one could.  
  
Whenever he was near Ken, he could feel it, like something alive, this acute awareness that Ken was the other part of him, a part that had been lost, made him feel incomplete, until he had found Ken.  
  
He crossed the room and stood behind Ken. Ken didn't step away but just slowly looked up at him.  
  
He swept back the bangs that slid to cover Ken's eyes, then cupped Ken's cheek in his palm. Ken's skin was soft and golden…he seemed fragile yet Brad knew of the quiet strength inside.  
  
He trailed a finger down Ken's cheek and caressed Ken's jaw, tilting the younger boy's head up as he did so. He had never, in his entire life, touched anyone this way before. Never ran fingers across anyone's features, memorizing them with his hand.  
  
With Ken though it was a sensory need he had to fill.  
  
Always it was Ken who brought forth emotions he didn't know he could feel. /Always…/  
  
His mouth touched Ken's once, the barest of touches, like the brush of an angel's wing. Moments later their kisses were deep and drugging…addicting, a necessity…like breathing air. He desired Ken's taste, the same way he craved Ken's scent, the sound of Ken's voice, the brightness of his smile.  
  
Brad's hands slipped into the silk shirt Ken was wearing, his silk shirt, to brush against Ken's nipples. Ken's reaction was instantaneous.  
  
"Brad." Ken gasped and held onto him tighter.  
  
A slight touch here, a button undone there, and the shirt slid like water away to reveal Ken's naked form. He was sleek and golden, flushed a dusky rose. Perfect.  
  
Brad's own clothes quickly joined Ken's and for a minute Brad just stood there, looking at Ken as moonlight bathed both of them. "You're perfect." He said quietly.  
  
Ken blushed and he turned away for a moment before peeking up shyly at Brad. "So are you."  
  
Brad put his hands on Ken's waist and lifted Ken up, laying Ken down on the bed as his mouth traveled over Ken's body. Light touches of liquid fire followed by soft kisses on calves and ankles, slowly, slowly moving up, inch by slow loving inch over trembling legs, shifting back to the smooth chest to lick and nip at sensitive nipples.  
  
Ken's fingers threaded through his hair and his name was like a prayer on Ken's lips. A prayer he kissed silent as he returned once more to chocolate sweet lips, delving in like a drowning man needing air, finding it in the warm spaces of Ken's mouth.  
  
Even as their tongues danced, Brad's hands stroked Ken's nipples, skimming over the overheated skin of Ken's belly and lower…  
  
Ken gasped into mouth and his hands clutched at Brad's shoulders as Brad stroked him over and over again. Touching Ken was everything. Watching what his touch did to Ken was more than everything.  
  
They spoke in half-finished phrases, desire and passion stealing their words.  
  
"Please…"  
  
"Ken, let me…"  
  
When he had done everything he could to make the experience easy for Ken, Brad shifted, poised to touch something finer than Heaven, then slowly sank into Ken.  
  
Ken gasped and stiffened. Tears leaking out of eyes tightly clenched shut.  
  
"My God…" Brad froze with realization. Then he looked at Ken, tracing the path Ken's tears took with his lips before whispering in his ear. "You couldn't have fallen very far."  
  
Ken said nothing but gripped his shoulders as he slowly opened his eyes.  
  
In that instant, Brad saw his future and his heart. "Easy, love, easy." He slid a hand between them and lit Ken's passion again. A gift for what he had given Brad. Soon he had Ken's body crying tears too.  
  
"Hod on to me, love, tightly," he whispered in a tight voice, then buried his tongue into Ken's mouth.  
  
Ken answered by gripping his arms and lifting his hips, instinctively seeking the caresses that would send him over the edge that he craved, feeling like he was on the edge of the precipice, waiting to fall. Brad gave him those touches and more, knowing the exact instance when Ken went over the edge of oblivion.  
  
Then he thrust home. Ken groaned and twisted and Brad stilled, afraid it would give Ken more pain. "Ken…Ken look at me."  
  
Ken slowly opened his eyes.  
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
Ken nodded, then reached up and ran fingers over Brad's mouth, his heart in his eyes.  
  
"Tell em if I hurt you." And he moved slowly, very slowly watching Ken until brown eyes drifted close and Ken was meeting each of his thrusts and moving with him, creating an intimate rhythm of their own.  
  
It seemed to go on forever, an eternity within this person who showed him more than words ever could what love and life was about. He felt release coming hard and fast, from his mind to his heart, to other parts that were more elemental.  
  
He strived for his legendary control, wanting to take Ken with him, needing their first time to be them, together, completely them and nothing else.  
  
Soon he felt the rise in Ken, a change in urgency that signalled that Ken was near. He shifted and moved faster, feeling Ken match his pace as they reached for something just out of reach, something so primal and only moments away.  
  
When it came it was scintillating, blinding, incredible. It was everything…  
  
Brad clung to the young man in his arms for a moment, basking in the aftermath for as long as he could. And when the physical passion drained away, he found that what he felt for Ken…was still there.  
  
He tenderly cupped Ken's head in his hand and told Ken what he know knew had been there since the first time he saw Ken: "You're my heart, Ken. I love you. How I love you."  
  
Ken's face also crumpled with emotion. He shook his head, his breath a cry and a whisper. Something Brad hadn't been able to hear as sleep claimed him.  
  
"Oh no…please."  
  
But it was too late.  
  
Bradley Crawford had found in him a miracle and given Ken his heart.  
  
***  
  
Ken stood by the bed and watched Brad sleep. The house was quiet. Still.  
  
Ken shivered. There were embers in the fireplace but the chill he felt had nothing to do with the air.  
  
And had everything to do with his life. His life in Heaven had been everything wrong. Here, on Earth, everything was right. Even his miracles.  
  
It was bitterly funny, cruel and ironic that the one thing he could not do in Heaven, as hard as he had tried, he had been able to do here on Earth. A miracle. Bradley's miracle.  
  
He wondered if he would go back to heaven now. Would the Father be so cruel? With all of his earthly being Ken hoped not.  
  
He smiled sadly. How strange it felt…two weeks before he had been in despair at having fallen, he would have done everything to go back to Heaven…now…now he didn't want to go back.  
  
All because of one man. "Brad…" Ken whispered as he laid a hand on the sleeping man's cheek. In sleep, Brad looked free of worries, and younger than he looked awake, all of his shields relaxed in slumber.  
  
/If I go…/ A brief glimpse of how agonizing eternity would be now that it no longer meant anything to her flashed through his mind. Because Brad loved him.  
  
And what about Brad? Ken's eyes widened as he covered his mouth with one hand, trying to catch a shuddering breath that couldn't be caught. It was not hard to imagine Brad's pain should he find Ken gone…this man who had lost every person he had ever cared for.  
  
/I do not want to go! Please, Father, let me stay!/ For Brad's sake and for his own, he prayed. Again and again until he finally fell to his knees. His hands were folded tightly as he stared at them. He didn't know if he clasped them tightly to try and hold on to this earthly life or to help insure that his prayers would be answered.  
  
But prayers and folded hands were not helping. Ken could fell it. It was as if he was slowly fading. He caught hold of one of Brad's hands. The older man stirring a little as he clutched at the hand tightly.  
  
/I want to stay. Please…/  
  
"Please…"  
  
He tried to hold onto Brad as long as he could, laying his cheek into the palm as he sobbed silently.  
  
Somewhere in the distance a church bell rang.  
  
And a second later, Ken disappeared, leaving Brad's upturned hand holding air.  
  
TBC ^__~ Comments onegai?  
  
Ok so I really tried to make that lemon and it is a lemon ne? I freely admit that it was based on the love scene in the same story. A het love scene at that *bol* A well. Its my first time to do it after all. And I really really tried to make it as original as possible but I just don't know how to proceed. Yackety yakety. I'm done! ^^  
  
Brad: *smiles in satisfaction* I get to be the first.  
  
Ran: Shi-ne Schwarz! 


	10. Sound the Whistle

Author: Swythangel  
  
Email: swythangel@hotmail.com  
  
Title: Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Type: 9/9 WAFF  
  
Teaser: Happiness is relative just as heaven is. An angel finds out that heaven is more than just a place upstairs as he falls to Earth.  
  
Rating: NC-17  
  
Spoilers:  
  
Warnings: Shonen Ai, Yaoi, definitely absolutely AU  
  
Disclaimer: Weiß Kreuz is not mine…they're Koyasu Takehito's, Project Weiß, Kyoko Tsuchiya and whoever else ^-^ "Daniel and the Angel" is an anthology by Jill Barnett in the book "A Holiday of Love". Its not mine, the idea is certainly not mine. I'm just adapting it to fit my twisted sense of storytelling.  
  
Keywords/Pairings: BradKen  
  
The Last! At last at last! And none too soon too…I feel like writing a LOTR Aragorn/Legolas fic and a Hikaru No Go fic. You guys don't know how much I want to…its call is like the gull's cries urging Legolas to the sea… *sweatdrops at glares* Ok, so its only after I finish Gott that is ^^  
  
See me finished in 9! I did didn't I? *proud look*  
  
Heaven in Your Arms  
  
Part 9/9  
  
Somewhere in the distance a church bell rang and woke him up. He reached out to his side, hands ready to clasp at a warm hand only to touch cool sheets…the bed was empty.  
  
He assumed that Ken was in the bathroom though he could hear no sounds to indicate it. He wanted to go to Ken but thought that he needed some privacy so instead he waited for the younger man to go to him. Brad locked hands behind his head and stared up at the canopy with contentment.  
  
/One night would not be enough./  
  
Brad had never thought of marriage for himself other than the fact that he needed an heir to leave his fortune to. But as he lay down, knowing how much he wanted Ken with him for a lifetime he quickly threw any idea of marrying out of his mind. No woman could ever compare to Ken and the contentment he felt when he was with Ken.  
  
He smiled and closed his eyes as he waited for Ken to come back to bed.  
  
Hours after, his eyes opened. He didn't know how long he slept but Ken was nowhere around. A gnawing, fearful feeling settled over him.  
  
Brad threw back the covers and stood up, then looked in the dressing room. The bathroom was open, the room dark.  
  
His stomach turned over.  
  
He rushed inside, stepping around baskets of sleeping puppies, kittens and rabbits. Ken wasn't there.  
  
"Ken?" Brad called out, rushing back into the bedroom. Silence, like a cold invisible mist, settled heavily down on him, broken only for seconds by a sleepy meow and puppy whimpers.  
  
Unable to stop the growing dread in his heart he shouted, "Ken!", putting on his clothes as he did so. With frenzied panic, he burst out of the gold bedroom and ran down the hall, only stopping when he was at the top of the stairs. "Ken!!" he yelled once again, Ken's name echoing through the gallery like a mocking counterpoint to his shout.  
  
/Gott! What are you looking for in the middle of the night, Mein Herr Leader?/ Schuldich's sleepy thought butted in.  
  
Brad didn't even deign to answer as he strode through his house on hell- sped feet, looking, searching, hoping…all the time unconsciously murmuring one name.  
  
Ken.  
  
***  
  
Schuldich eventually pieced everything together from Brad's panic filled mind and flung his searching thoughts out through the house for the thought patterns that would identify the naïve brunette to him.  
  
He found nothing.  
  
He widened his search to the whole city, exhausting his energy to do so but he did so in vain. In the whole miasma of teeming humanity in New York City not a sliver of thought remained of the young man they had known as Ken. It was as if the brunette had never even existed.  
  
"Now how to tell Crawford?" Schuldich mumbled to himself, ensconced in his warm bed. Green eyes flickered, disturbed beyond measure of how Schwarz' leader would take this bit of news. Surely it would do no less than destroy the leader who, Schuldich knew, had fallen for the young man in so short a time.  
  
He wished he wasn't the one to give the news. Much as he might enjoy torturing and teasing those around him, he was not as sadistic as some would like to think. And to be the bearer of such ill tidings…  
  
"There is no helping it." He reached out with his thoughts…  
  
***  
  
/Ken is not in New York City./ Quick, to the point and honest, the thought was like a sword thrust through the financier's chest, but one he had been expecting. Even before he had began his search he had known that Ken would not have answered him. In his heart, he knew…because the remarkable feeling inside him, the one that had been there since he had met Ken, was gone.  
  
As quickly as if God had snapped His fingers. It was gone.  
  
He stared at his hands, white knuckled as they gripped the edges of his table inside his sanctum where he had finally stopped his search, then he sagged down onto his chair and didn't move for the longest time.  
  
Everything that he was, every laugh, every smile, every happiness he had ever experienced seem to drain away until he felt as if he were hollow inside, empty…bereft.  
  
He rested his head into his hands and took a couple of deep breaths.  
  
"Ken…"  
  
He said Ken's name one last time. It was barely a whisper.  
  
***  
  
"For the last time Takatori, forget about the release!" Brad cut through the middle of the senator's prattle with a cold glare. "I have other things to see to least of all that. Get it into your head. I. Do. Not. Care. Fuck the release!" He stormed out, finally breaking the icy cold façade he had been maintaining since that night. In his voice anger and desperation could be heard.  
  
A fact that made the members of Schwarz release a breath of relief simultaneously. They were of like mind that bottling it up would only make the Schwarz leader more brittle than he already was.  
  
And who could blame him? Time was going by. A whole day.  
  
Brad couldn't find Ken. No one could find him not even Schwarz. There was no trace of him anywhere, anywhere that money, power and extraordinary perception could look for. No one had even seen Ken leave. It was as if he had never existed…  
  
"I fervently hope that he would actually come back and sue the hell out of me." Brad continued as he turned his back on Takatori, to stare out the window. "At least then I would know where he is."  
  
Takatori rose from his chair, picked up the brief case he had brought with him and snapped it close. He stood there for an awkward moment, staring at the man he had thought he had pegged as a cold bastard in an agony of uncertainty and felt pity. "I'm sorry, Crawford."  
  
Brad didn't respond and minutes later the door clicked closed. A dull roar of an engine and Brad saw Takatori's limo pull away from his driveway.  
  
Crawford just sat there staring at the falling snow. As he relived memories of a naïve young man… Ken standing under a tree with a pile of snow on him, so much that he looked like a snowman…Ken's face looking up at him, velvet brown eyes sparkling, the crinkle in his nose as he scrunched it up whenever Ken couldn't understand something.  
  
He remembered the mistletoe Schuldich had strategically placed. A sweet kiss. Christmas greens. The cornhusk angel atop a tree. And another angel, the only angel he had ever known.  
  
He stood up suddenly, startling Nagi, Farfarello and Schuldich who looked at him simultaneously from their different locations in the room. He ignored them as he made his way to the hall and up the stairs. When he reached ken's bedroom, his hand paused on the door knob. He didn't quite understand it but some illogical hope kindled. Maybe, just maybe Ken would be there…  
  
He opened the door.  
  
And his hope died. Ken wasn't inside.  
  
He stepped into the room because he had to, then closed and locked the door.  
  
Puppies, kittens and rabbits greeted him but he ignored them, his gaze fixated on the bed to the piece of cloth that still lay, seemingly forgotten, on the bed…right where Ken had lain only hours before…Hours before, when his world had seemed to be perfect. When he had thought that everything would finally be different from his life before…when he had thought that love had finally been his.  
  
Now there was just his silk shirt, nothing more. He reached out and touched it hesitantly, almost thinking that it would disappear too, the way Ken had…  
  
But it didn't disappear. He picked it up, the silk smooth and cool to his touch, and sat down on the bed. He stared at the shirt.  
  
Ken's scent was there with him. A piquant touch of lemon. Real.  
  
But Ken wasn't.  
  
A puppy jumped into his lap, then another and another. One of them was chewing on something and he gently took it from its mouth. It was the earring. Ken's earring. His hand closed tightly on it as if by doing so he could bring Ken home to him.  
  
/Fly home to me, my angel./  
  
The kittens crawled up the chair and the rabbits chewed on his shoelaces. He looked at them and hen at the earring, then at the silk shirt he clutched in his hands.  
  
A moment later he buried his face in the shirt and amazingly, for the first time in a very long while, Bradley Crawford, allowed himself to cry.  
  
***  
  
"Ken's watching him. Constantly he watches him."  
  
Saint Peter stopped pacing and looked at Omi. "Has he stopped crying?"  
  
Ran answered for Omi. "No, sir." His voice was tight with tension and his glance ever did stray on the angel who knelt at a cloud's edge looking down on the world below them.  
  
"Been like that since he came here." Youji chimed in mournfully. His intuition had been correct. Their friend had gone and fallen in love with the financier. But Youji wasn't happy to be right.  
  
St. Peter sighed then moved across the clouds with the three angels floating in his wake, whispering to themselves.  
  
"I would like to take a swing at that financier with my sword." Ran muttered rather wrathfully, swinging his arms like he was actually doing so.  
  
Youji swatted his arms away and rolled his eyes. "Like it was his fault in the first place?"  
  
"But its his fault!"  
  
"Ran-kun, you can't make anybody fall in love with anyone else by force-"  
  
"Who said Ken was in love with him?" The red haired dominion said stiffly, causing the two blond angels to exchange rueful glances. They ignored the dominion, knowing full well that Ran would never listen to reason.  
  
St. Peter on the other hand continued walking until he stood near where Ken knelt clutching at the rim of a cloud with white knuckled hands and peering intently over the edge. So intently that he didn't even notice the Guardian of the Gates' presence.  
  
St. Peter though noticed everything about the angel. He noticed how Ken's halo had no glow and how Ken's wings seemed to droop downwards like a flower whose petals had been badly bruised. He cleared his throat.  
  
Ken raised his head and looked up at St. Peter with swollen eyes, the tears he couldn't stop were mute testimony of his pain. "He's at the park, calling my name." He told the venerable angel.  
  
St. Peter looked down. "So I see."  
  
Ken bit his lip and watched Brad whose head was bent. Brad's hands were shoved in his coat pockets and snow fell all around him as he walked with leaden steps from the park. "He's alone and lost. Can't I help him? Can't you or someone else help him? He's lost everyone."  
  
"Some people have a harder road to travel, Ken."  
  
Ken looked up at St. Peter. "I never really knew what heaven was until I found Brad."  
  
A smothered sniffle issued from behind and St. Peter looked at Omi who was unable to hold back the tears himself. Youji comforted the younger angel…then St. Peter felt the pressure of a weighted gaze on him so he turned to meet purple eyes. Eyes filled with determination and realization. Eyes that conveyed one thought, pure and sacrificing, a thought befitting a dominion in the Lord's service.  
  
/Give him a chance to find love for himself. Please ask Our Father in our behalf. I will bear what burden would result. Just…just let him go back to …the human./  
  
St. Peter shook his head at Ran. /It is not our place to question the wisdom of Our Father, dominion. But do not worry, Our father in His infinite wisdom always has a plan. Now go and take the others with you. I will deal with Ken./  
  
Ran bowed and quietly ushered the two away. When the others were gone, St. Peter turned back to Ken to find Ken's shoulders shaking. The poor angel was also hiccuping as he looked downward. "He's at the church now, praying. Hear him?" Ken paused. "I can hear him."  
  
Saint Peter sat down on the rim of the cloud as he looked down on the world below. He turned his gaze to one man in particular--a dark and empty shape of a man.  
  
St. Peter was quiet, then he looked at Ken for the longest time. After an eternal minute, he cleared his throat and said in a gruff voice, "So, Ken. Tell me about your young man."  
  
***  
  
Brad had searched everywhere. Over sideways and under, every person who had ever talked to Ken in New York, every place he had gone to, not a stone had been left unturned. And when NYC couldn't give the answer, Brad turned his formidable will, wealth and influence towards other states, other countries…there was no place where Schwarz couldn't get into.  
  
The results?  
  
Nothing. It was as if Ken had never existed in the United States or even in the world…  
  
Every day Brad would sit down on the bench on the park, wanting to see Ken running in the snow, his hat flying behind him, wishing to hear the laughter. All he found was the world moving on without him.  
  
He felt like he had always felt before, like a stranger looking into a world where he did not fit in, unwanted, lost…not even the presence of Schuldich, Farfarello and Nagi which had always been a small balm to his loneliness before soothed the ache inside.  
  
He scoured the Washington Market, rung every bell he could find, asked children if they had seen Ken. Ken seemed as elusive as the mythological Santa Claus. He went into churches, every church and he prayed, rustily at first because he had not done it for so long, but the prayers didn't seem to have any answers.  
  
By midnight on Christmas Eve he had walked all the way to the opera house not caring about the cold or the snow. There was a performance of Handel's Messiah scheduled.  
  
He wandered through the crowds until everyone had gone inside. He dug into his pockets and dropped coins and bills into every dented and rusty tin can along the way.  
  
The snow began to fall harder and faster. He stuffed a hundred dollar bill into an old dented tin can sitting by a crippled old man dressed in too- thin clothes, shivering. Brad paused and said: "The storm is going to hit sometime soon. Do you have anywhere to go?"  
  
"I have a small apartment I share with others in Grand Street east of the Bowery." The old man tried to get up, reaching for his crutches but his hands gave way, too cold from the elements to move easily. He didn't have any gloves.  
  
Brad helped him up then bent down to give the man the tin can. He turned and hailed a cab with a sharp gesture.  
  
He opened the door. "I've paid the driver to take you home," He told the man as he helped him inside. He stared for a moment, looking into creased eyes that showed every hard year he lived. Without a thought, Brad pulled off his expensive leather gloves and placed them into the man's hands, closing the bent, stiff aged fingers around them. "Merry Christmas," he said, then closed the door.  
  
For the longest time he just stood there and watched the taxi disappear down the snowy street. Then he turned and stuck his freezing hands into his coat pockets, and walked towards home, his mind returning to the ache of loss and emptiness.  
  
He passed a Salvation Army bell ringer near the corner and automatically reached into his pants pockets. He found nothing.  
  
He had used up the last of his money for the cab.  
  
He started to walk on but stopped and took off his gold Rolex. He looked at it for a moment as the diamonds sparkled at him.  
  
Time didn't matter to him anymore. Without Ken, nothing seemed to matter.  
  
He walked back and tossed the watch into the collection bucket, then he turned and walked away.  
  
He realized with a sudden sense of panic that the man had stopped ringing the bell. He froze, his shoulders turned inwards against the cold in his heart more than the cold outside. "Don't stop ringing that bell. Please. Keep ringing, because…" His voice dropped into a tight whisper and he stared in a place that was faraway from the present. "Every time a bell rings…"  
  
"An angel gets its wings." The bell ringer finished for him.  
  
"Ken?" His head shot up in disbelief. He spun around then reached out and pushed back the cap that had obscured the bell ringer's features. He found soft brown eyes dancing with lights. "Ken!"  
  
"Brad…"  
  
And Ken was in his arms.  
  
"God, Ken. Its really you!" He held Ken so tightly that the younger man looked to be running out of air but he didn't want to let go…the fear that Ken might disappear again foremost in his mind.  
  
"Let go a little Brad!" Ken laughed breathlessly.  
  
"No."  
  
"I'm here now. I'm here." Ken must have read the look on his face because Ken said, "And I'll never leave you again. It's for a lifetime."  
  
Only then did Brad let go enough to let the younger man breath. "I thought I lost you." He held Ken's face so tenderly in his hands, like Ken was made of fragile glass. "I've searched everywhere, every place we've been…"  
  
/And all the places in between too…/ Schuldich's tired thought butted in.  
  
/Stay out of this Schuldich./  
  
/I just dropped in to tell the kitten how happy we are that he's around. Now maybe we can have our unflappable non-neurotic leader back, hmmnnn?/  
  
Ken laughed. Brad scowled and shoved at Schuldich. /Shut up Schuldich. Now leave us alone./  
  
/Alright, alright. See you back home then lovebirds./  
  
Brad snorted once. "Trust Schuldich to spoil something special." He looked back at Ken whose eyes remained lambent under his gaze.  
  
"I have missed you, Brad."  
  
Brad's hands went back to cup Ken's face, his piercing eyes staring at the brunette as if he intended to memorize every line and feature on Ken's face. "Nothing matters without you. I have given away more money than I have ever had before…and I will keep on doing it again if you will always stay by me. You are everything."  
  
A tear slid down Ken's cheek and Brad's arms went around Ken again. He held Ken so damn tightly and Ken heard his whisper: "My angel."  
  
Ken disengaged himself from Brad and put fingers to his lips, tracing the contours. "Brad?" He said wonderingly. "Your angel?"  
  
"My fallen angel. You've come home to me."  
  
Ken smiled up at him then fixed an odd look up at the Heaven. Ken winked then he looked back at Brad, a smile on his face only for the bespectacled man who looked at him with such love in his eyes. He leaned back into Brad's arms. "Maybe, just maybe Brad…all you had to do was whistle."  
  
***  
  
Somewhere near Ken three angels looked on the happiness of the couple…  
  
"Waiii! That was so romantic!" Omi bounced up and down.  
  
"Yes, it was." Youji said, grinning a satisfied grin. "I'm glad St. Peter and the Heavenly Father relented." Youji looked at the dominion, strangely silent behind him, a little bit of worry in his tone. "Ran? How do you feel about this?"  
  
Purple eyes turned from the scene. "Just let that bastard make Ken cry even once and I swear I will chop him to pieces."  
  
In violet depths Youji could see a little hurt inside for what had transpired but more than that was the acceptance of what had to be.  
  
Ran's unrequited love would not fester in his spirit and lead to his downfall, instead he would let it go free to seek its fortune where it will. And he would go on.  
  
***  
  
Sometimes, when there are raised voices in the Schwarz household, particularly when Ken is near tears, a cold wind would blow into the hall and Bradley Crawford would suddenly feel the pain of a thousand needles jabbing into his head.  
  
On these times he would feel the heat of a glare on the back of his head and a forbidding air enters the room. These are the times he knows he has to apologize and coddle his Ken or the pain and discomfort would never stop until he did so.  
  
On these times, when the air around Brad would suddenly grow cold, Nagi, youngest member of Schwarz, would feel a relative warming in the air around him and an itch near his cheek and neck, as if something was wrapped around him and stealing small kisses down his cheek.  
  
Strange occurrences happened in the Crawford household but whatever else was said, it was generally accepted (mainly because of Ken's proddings and insistence) that angels were the root of it all. The members of Schwarz, jaded and world-wise, disagreed of course but they did so privately or risk the wrath of Brad's glaring eyes.  
  
And finally all was right with the world.  
  
~OWARI~  
  
Is it a nice ending do you think? Not too sappy? I know Brad's OOC but darn if I didn't love the original ending so much I wanted to copy it. ^^ Except Barnett never had such fun angels like Ran to play with. ^^ Poor Nagi, forever having a chibi Angel!Omi on his neck. I'm evil! ^^  
  
Many Thanks go out to the following artists who drew me pretty piccies: Lilas-chan, Aryn, Belle, Lily, Eeyore, Lily Riyume and Erijka… Thanks also to everyone who commented and stayed with the fic. ^_______^ Its finally finished now you guys can breath ne? ne? 


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